


The Real Rich Goranski

by awkwardanxiousasexual



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Angst, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Swearing, im going to add stuff as i go i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 45,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23764396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardanxiousasexual/pseuds/awkwardanxiousasexual
Summary: Rich realizes that he doesn't really know who he is without the squip. He tries to figure it out but healing isn't always linear.
Relationships: Rich Goranski/Michael Mell
Comments: 77
Kudos: 150





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rich has a lisp but I'm not going to write it out.

Rich had never been in a hospital before so he wasn’t sure what the proper etiquette was. Hell, he wasn’t even sure if there was hospital etiquette. All he knew is that he had woken up to see Michael Mell sitting in a chair next to Jeremy’s bed. He didn’t even realize Michael had come in. Though, to be fair, he also hadn’t realized that Jeremy was in the hospital with him. Last thing he remembered he was laying in his bed when all of a sudden his SQUIP started freaking out and his head felt like it had been split open.

Now that he was awake he was trying to figure out if he should alert Michael to his presence or not. He didn’t want to interrupt whatever Michael was doing. What was he doing anyway? Contemplating their friendship? Providing Jeremy moral support? Rich really didn’t know how hospitals worked. On the other hand, it was probably more rude to silently stare at him while Michael thought he was asleep. Not that it’s his fault, when you’re in a full body cast you can’t really turn to your side or close the hospital curtain to give someone any illusion of privacy. After about 5 minutes, which was long enough for any decision he made to be awkward so he really couldn't win, he decided not to say anything.

He figured there was absolutely no reason Michael should want to talk to him. Shit. Of course Michael wouldn’t want to talk to him. Rich had been an absolute asshole to him and Jeremy. Plus, he had given Jeremy the information about the SQUIP which probably led to him being in the hospital. Who would willingly talk to the guy who put his best friend in the hospital? No one. Fuck, now he was thinking how he broke both of Jake’s legs which was something he couldn’t think about without crying. And since crying about all the people you hurt in a house fire you started wasn’t the best ice breaker, Rich tried to go back to thinking about a potential conversation with Michael.

He knew he should apologize for being a jerk to him and Jeremy. Well, for the SQUIP being a jerk. But if Rich was being honest, some of it was him. Sometimes to avoid a punishment, sometimes because he knew that the SQUIP would do it regardless of whether Rich wanted to or not. At least if Rich did it he could control how hard he would push someone or what he said. If he could hurt someone slightly less the SQUIP would, that's a win right? Is it a win if he liked the outcome? Is it wrong to like having friends? Yes, he thought, if you hurt people to do it. God, he really was a bad person, with or without the SQUIP. The intent doesn’t matter though. Bottom line, he hurt people and he had to own up to that, no matter the circumstances that led up to it. 

Now he just had to figure out how to apologize. He can’t just blurt out “I’m sorry” in the middle of dead silence. There has to be some build up right? Do you have small talk with someone before apologizing, like “hey how's the weather and also I’m sorry I ruined your life?”. Rich struggled to recall how a normal conversation worked. Without a SQUIP he felt like the most pathetic human being who was ever born. There was no way normal people thought this much about a conversation before even having it. His train of thought was interrupted by an older man Rich had never seen before walking into the room. 

“Hey Mr.Heere,” Michael said looking up, “what did the doctor say?”. 

“He should be up in an hour or so,” the man, who Rich was assumed was Jeremy’s dad, replied. As he crossed the room to reach his son’s bed he paused next to Rich’s bed. “Hey”, he said looking down, “you’re Rich right? At least that’s what Michael said your name was”. 

Fuck, they had been talking about him. He could only imagine what Michael had said. Right now he was picturing Michael dramatically pointing at him while yelling “That’s him Mr.Heere! That’s the kid who ruined everything!”. God, Jeremy’s dad was going to kill him and he probably deserved it. Speaking of Jeremy’s dad, the man was staring expectantly, his eyebrows slightly raised. Oh yeah, he had been talking to him. 

“Uh yes sir” Rich muttered. He hated how unsure his voice sounded, as if he didn’t know his own name. Plus, in his excessive worrying, he had forgotten about his lisp so he figured he sounded twice as stupid. And now Michael and Mr.Heere were both just staring at him.

“How are you feeling Rich? Must've been a tough past week or so.” 

“I feel fine,” Rich replied, desperately trying to make himself sound a little more confident, like he had actually had a conversation before. It didn’t work.

“Well that’s good”. He looked like he wanted to say more before changing his mind and going to sit down in the chair next to the bed opposite of Michael. 

They both talked amongst themselves for a while.Rich doesn’t know for how long or what they talked about. He’s been doing that a lot these past few days. Just zoning out. He doesn’t know if it's a SQUIP thing what. But next thing he knows Mr.Heere is getting up again, asking Michael if he wants anything from the cafeteria downstairs. Rich thinks Michael replied but he can’t be quite sure. Regardless, Mr.Heere starts to leave the room, reaching the doorway and suddenly stopping. 

“Aw crap. Michael I forgot my wallet at home. It’s going to take me a while to get back.”

“That’s alright. Mr.Heere take your time”

“Text me if Jeremy wakes up alright?” 

Michael nods and with that Jeremy’s dad leaves the room. The room is tense and Rich is laying there trying to figure out which one, if either, of them should speak first when Michael looks up.

“How long were you awake for?”

“Not long. I didn’t even see you come in.” Rich figures he isn't going to get a better opener. “Hey, Michael?” Michael doesn’t say anything but he is making eye contact so it's a start.”I’m sorry. For everything. For being an ass to you and Jeremey. For giving Jeremy the SQUIP. All of it, I’m sorry”. Fuck he isn’t saying anything. Why isn’t he saying anything?. “Not that you have to forgive me or anything I just wanted you to know” Rich rushes out.

“No, it's not that” Michael sighs. “Look Rich, I get it. I don’t blame you. After seeing what the SQUIP made Jeremy and the others do at the play, I get it.”

You should blame me. That’s what Rich thinks anyway. He’s sure as hell not going to say that out loud though. 

“What did happen? At the play I mean?” 

Michael looks over at him before doing the most confusing thing Rich had seen all day. He gets up and sits down next to Rich’s bed. He doesn’t say anything for a bit, like he's trying to figure out where to start. 

“Um, a lot I guess. Long story short though, the whole cast got SQUIPed. Me and Jeremy fought past them to get to a bottle of Mountain Dew red that I had brought. Jeremy gave Christine the bottle like the stupid romantic he is but since all the SQUIPs were connected they all shut down.”

“Oh,” Rich says, trying for a second to wrap his brain around the science of how any of that could’ve worked but ultimately decides that it doesn’t really matter. “So that’s what that was.”

“What?” Michael asks absentmindedly. He’s scrolling through his phone but hasn’t left the chair by Rich’s bed yet.

“Around the time of the play my SQUIP started freaking out and then just shut off. Probably because it was connected to Jeremy’s.” Michael stops at that and looks back up at Rich.

“Oh. So the fire didn’t, you know?” Michael falters and looks like he suddenly realized that maybe talking about the fire wasn’t such a great idea.

“No”

“It was on that whole time?”

“Yup”

Michael falls silent again. Except this time the quiet room doesn’t feel tense. It just feels like the two of them are existing next to each other. It’s the most comfortable Rich has felt with Michael all day. 

“Hey Rich? When they SQUIP was attacking us, it made Jake walk even though his legs were broken. Said that he had turned off the pain receptors. Did..,” Michael looks hesitant, like he doesn’t even want to finish his question, “Did yours?”. 

“Nope”. Rich would laugh if he didn’t think it would hurt. “It wasn’t too happy with the whole fire thing so it wasn’t really jumping at any opportunity to help me out”. If anything, Rich thinks it did the opposite. This past week everything had hurt so much that Rich thought that the SQUIP had been blocking all the pain meds he had been given.

“I’m sorry”

“Don’t be” 

It’s quiet for a while. Rich can’t really figure out what's happening. Michael hasn’t moved back to Jeremy’s side of the room, even though the conversation died out ages ago. Rich doesn’t know why Michael is being so nice. Why he even cares enough to talk and answer his questions. In fact, Rich can't remember the last time anyone had been this nice to him. At least the real him. Wow, that’s a sad thought. Michael had a 5 minute conversation with him and then didn’t leave after and yet Rich can’t recall anyone from school doing anything like this before the SQUIP. He’s felt like crying a couple times today, but this sets him over the edge. If Michael notices the tears quietly running down Rich’s face he doesn’t mention it. Rich doesn’t know if that's better or worse.Maybe Michael didn’t actually care and was just sitting here cause he felt bad that Rich had no friends. Either way, Rich doesn’t want to talk about his feelings so he’s fine to just sit here crying by himself. 

This whole situation is overwhelming. Rich feels completely lost and he is still crying. He takes a shaky breath.

“Michael? Thanks. For getting rid of them. I tried but I obviously had no idea what I was doing. So, I’m just grateful I guess”.

“Don’t be” Michael smiles. Rich attempts to smile back figuring that Michael is trying to make some sort of joke. Rich has no clue what he looks like but Michael laughs lightly. Not in a mean way though, it’s sweet and quiet and a type of laugh Rich has never really heard before. 

“Really man it's fine. I was just trying to do the right thing.”

They don’t talk again, at least not until Jeremy wakes up, but it's okay. Rich realizes that he enjoys just sitting here next to Michael, no matter the reason why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never written anything, much less published something so be nice I guess. I'm going to add tags as i go (I think I can do that? I've never use ao3 before?). If I forget something let me know. Feel free to correct me I know my grammer probably sucks.


	2. Chapter 2

When Jeremy wakes up it’s just the two of them in the room. Rich decides to skip the whole internal debate of who should speak first this time, cause frankly it was kinda exhausting.

“It feels like you’re missing a part of yourself doesn’t it?”. Jeremy looks over in surprise like he hadn’t realized that he wasn’t alone. 

“Rich?” 

“It hurts like a motherfucker Jeremy”. Rich hadn’t been this eager to talk before but it was easier to talk to someone who had one. Someone who knew what it was like to have that piece of shit computer in their brain. It was easy to not feel guilty when you’re talking to a person who made a lot of the same mistakes you did. Rich knew he was worse though. Jeremy didn’t burn down his best friend's house. “Be honest. What are they saying about me at school?”. This had been the part he was too afraid to ask Michael. There clearly wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with arson or anything because Rich hadn't been arrested yet. Could you even arrest someone in a full body cast? Rich briefly wondered if there was a police officer just waiting for the moment he was healed enough to wear handcuffs. Probably not. Regardless, Rich knows teenagers talk and enough people saw him that night to put the pieces together. Jeremy doesn’t answer but the look on his face says enough. “That bad?” Rich asked. 

“Sorry,” Jeremy says, and to his credit he does look sympathetic. 

“Don’t be. I’m better off. That evil tic-tac was starting to say some seriously messed up stuff. SQUIP the school to make everyone happy. Crazy right?”. 

Jeremy laughs awkwardly, “Yeah crazy.”

Rich remembers what Michael told him about the play, how the whole cast had SQUIPs. Based on Jeremy’s reaction, he’s guessing he may have had something to do with it. Rich figures that Jeremy doesn’t really want to talk about the play so he changes the subject. 

“When I get outta here the ladies are going to learn to love the real Rich Goranski.” Rich isn’t sure where he’s going with this conversation, but at least it's something to talk about. Thinking about relationships reminds him of the SQUIP. And all the things it told him about who he could and couldn't date. “...and the dudes.” Rich isn’t talking so much as thinking out loud at this point. “Oh my God, I am totally bi!”. 

It feels good to say it out loud, to admit it to someone and to himself. The feeling had been there for a while, but he had never thought about it, much less vocalized it. Looking back, he’s pretty sure that the SQUIP had been working pretty hard to block a lot of that out. With it gone, Rich can finally connect the words to the feelings. Jeremy however, is ignoring this revelation. 

‘Wait, our SQUIPs are gone, but how?”

“Oh, ask your buddy. Anti-social headphones kid?” Rich isn’t sure if he meant that to be a joke or if he’s attempting to appear more casual. He doesn’t know why he would need to act casual though. He doesn’t exactly gain anything by pretending he doesn’t know Michael’s name. “ He’s been by like a ton by the way.” This is a joke but also an assumption. He only saw Michael once but he’s probably been here as long as Jeremy has. “Is he your boyfriend?” 

Jeremy shakes his head and looks like he’s about to reply but Rich is rambling now and interrupts him.

Is he single? I'm totally bi now!” And with that Michael is standing right behind him. Well, shit. 

“Hey Rich...” Michael drags the words out as he makes what seems to be a deliberate effort to not make eye contact. 

Michael sits on Jeremy’s bed and is going through the events of the play. Rich decides to tune out. It’s obvious by how they interact that Michael and Jeremy have been best friends for a while and Rich isn’t planning to intrude. He just hopes that he didn’t make Michael too uncomfortable earlier. Even Rich knew that asking about someone's relationship status while yelling about your bisexuality was a little weird. Especially if the person you were talking about was standing right behind you. 

Wow.

Rich really just implied that he had a crush on Michael. Turns out that, in a conversation, Rich can either think far too much about what he’s going to say, or just blurt out anything that comes to mind. Both methods have resulted in awkward situations and Rich thinks that maybe he’s just bad at talking to people. 

Rich decides not to worry about the whole “is he single” thing. After all, they both probably took it as a joke, right? Cause Rich had been joking. For sure.

Totally joking.

Cause even Rich wouldn’t be stupid enough to have a crush on Michael freaking Mell. A guy he barely knew. A guy who he had made fun of for nearly 2 years. The best friend of Jeremy fucking Heere. Jeremy, the guy whose life he almost ruined. Michael, who would never date him in a million years. 

Right?

Right.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is a bit short, the next update(s) will most likely be longer (but I can't make any promises)
> 
> Also holy cow I didn't think anyone would even see this so thanks to anyone who even thought to click on it. I've got some fun ideas coming up. (at least I think they're fun)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is way longer then I planned it to be but I couldn't figure out a place I like to cut it into 2 chapter so enjoy.  
> (TW) I mention Rich having a panic attack (it's not described in any detail but it's referenced) and I hint at Rich's home life being not the best (again not a lot of detail, barely any, but better safe then sorry)

After Jeremy gets discharged, Rich thinks that's the end of it. He had apologized to Michael earlier and made sure to apologize to Jeremy before he left. They had cleared the air and that was that. Rich had just been hoping that neither of them hated him. He honestly thought that neither of them would ever try to talk to him again. Which was why it was so weird when Michael walked back into Rich’s hospital room two days later.

“Hey Rich,” Michael said, as he collapsed into the chair next to the hospital bed. He pulls the side table over so it’s in front of him and throws a notebook on it as if he’s about to start doing his homework. He still has he’s backpack with him. There’s no way he came here right after school. Surely, Michael has better things to do. He pulls out his phone, looking over to Rich and says, “Do you mind if I play music?”. Rich, still majorly surprised by Michael even being here, has no clue as to why he needs his opinion on the matter.

“Um, you have headphones.” And he does, they’re hanging around his neck like they always are, when Michael isn’t actually wearing them that is. The headphones are kind of a Michael Mell staple; Rich doesn't know if he’s even seen Michael without them. He also can’t figure out why Michael thinks that Rich has an opinion on whether or not he uses them.

“No, like out loud dumbass. Figured you haven’t had much to do and you’re bored as hell.” 

“Uh, yeah go for it.” Rich says. Then, as an afterthought, “thanks”. Michael nods in reply. He’s tapping through his phone when suddenly he looks up. 

“Any requests?”

Rich shakes his head and Michael shrugs before picking a song. Rich doesn't recognize it but he’s not really listening. This is weird right? People don't just visit the hospital bed of some guy they barely know because they think they might be bored. Michael pulls a pencil out of his bag and Rich thinks that he's actually doing homework. There have to be better study spots then a hospital.

No. This is just pity. Michael felt bad and decided to visit the lonely kid in the hospital. It was glorified volunteer work. For someone who was coming here out of pity though, it sure didn't look like it. Michael had walked in weirdly confident.

Well, Michael had always been confident. Not like this though. He had walked in loud, strong, like he knew exactly where he was and why he was there. Like how Rich had walked into rooms back when he had his SQUIP. How Jake and Chole walked into rooms without even trying. 

Michael Mell’s usual brand of confidence was different, quieter. Most people at school would’ve labeled Michael a loner. Which he kind of was. As far as Rich knew he was only really close with Jeremy. But not because he was shy. He just didn’t hang out with anyone else. Michael did stuff he enjoyed and didn’t think twice. Michael acted like the concept of “cool” didn't even exist. Michael was the type of guy who wouldn’t change the clothes he wore or the music he listened to just because everyone told him he should. Or if a pill told him he should.

Other people thought confidence was being able to stand in a room and think, “I’m the best and I know it.” Michael acted like confidence was being able to stand in a room and think, “ I’m myself and I know it.”

At least that’s how Rich saw him. Not that Rich had spent a lot of time studying Michael or anything.

“How long until the cast comes off?” Michael asks as he pulls out what looks like a math worksheet.

“The doctor says that it can come off Thursday.”

“Nice, that’s what 3 days from now? That’s good right?” He’s twirling a pencil around in his hands as he stares at Rich.

“Yeah, I guess.” 

“You guess? What’s that supposed to mean?”

It means Rich is fucking terrified. He doesn’t want to know how much it’s going to hurt to move; he doesn't want to see the damage. But he’s already cried in front of Michael and came out to Jeremy and that feels like enough emotional vulnerability to last him the week. So, he backtracks.

“Doesn’t mean anything.”

Michael sighs as he turns to his math homework. “It is a good thing Rich. It means you're getting better.”

Rich stays silent because he knows Michael doesn’t really care. If anything, he’s just waiting for the cast to come off so Rich can do things himself. Then he can stop feeling guilty and he’ll never have to see Rich again. 

Michael however, has continued talking. Half of it is just him verbally working through various math problems. The other half is him loudly complaining about how his math teacher, Ms.Beckham, always gives them homework on concepts they haven’t covered in class. Rich isn’t responding to any of this, but he feels like he doesn’t have to. Michael is rambling in this weird sort of way where it invites a response, but doesn’t require one. Is this how Michael usually talks? Or just how he’s talking to Rich now? Is it to take the pressure off of having a conversation or is it just because Michael doesn’t care what he has to say?” 

If Michael is here because of pity, then it doesn’t matter if Rich contributes to the conversation because Michael isn’t here to talk to him. At least not really. 

A quieter voice in Rich’s head tells him it could be the opposite. That Michael is here to be nice. That he saw Rich fumble his way through two conversations and decided to aim for something casual on purpose. Rich really wants to believe that one. 

Michael stays for a while.Longer than Rich would have expected. He finally gets a text on his phone and looks up at Rich. 

“Sorry man, I got to go.” Michael is zipping up his backpack. 

“It’s fine.” It’s more than fine. Michael was here for a couple of hours at least and he’s apologizing for not staying longer. Michael throws up a peace sign as he walks out the door and leaves Rich far more confused than when he had woken up this morning.

\---

Rich is having a hard time being self-deprecating. The idea that Michael was here out of pity or just because of the full body cast is hard to maintain when the dude keeps fucking showing up. 

The second time is when the cast comes off. Rich wonders if he planned it that way or if it was just a coincidence. Michael walked in and sat down as if Rich should’ve been expecting him. It happens so fast Rich barely noticed he started talking.

“How’s it feel?”

Michael wasn’t supposed to be here. Rich was barely confronting the aftermath of the fire himself, he had no clue how to talk about it to someone else. The only other people Rich really talked to were the nurses. But they came in at the same time everyday and asked the same questions. They were predictable, Michael was proving to be the opposite.

“How does what feel?” 

Michael rolls his eyes as he sets his phone down on the side table. “Um, everything? You just got your cast off.”

‘It’s fine.” Michael turns towards him and Rich can feel him staring him down even if Rich isn’t facing him.

“Alright, are we going to try that again where you don’t lie to me and actually tell me what’s going on in your life?”

What does Michael even want to hear? That everything hurts like hell? That he’s dreading the day they remove the rest of his bandages because he doesn’t even want to know what the skin grafts look like?

Fuck, Rich can’t even look at himself now. It’s like a constant reminder of everything he’s fucked up. Everytime he looks down he just hears all the people at that party screaming. The look on Jake's face when it had happened. He hasn’t looked away from the wall across his room in hours.He’s barely moved. He’s too scared to look in Michael’s direction in case he catches a glimpse of himself. He had been perfectly happy trying to pretend that none of this existed before Michael had shown up. 

Ok, not happy but still. He doesn’t want to talk about it and he knows Michael for sure doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t need the burden of what Rich is thinking. He needs to shut this down now. Because Michael is obviously not going to give up. He closes his eyes momentarily as he turns his head. 

‘No. We’re not.” 

Fuck. Michael’s upset. It’s like all the energy drained from his body and he went back to being the shy kid in the hallway that Rich had made fun of. Shitshitshit this is worse. Why is this worse? He didn’t want to talk about the burns but he wishes he did. Michael doesn’t even acknowledge what just happened. He takes a slow breath before grabbing his phone.

“Any requests?”

Rich shakes his head and finds a spot on the wall again. Michael doesn’t talk this time.

He leaves earlier.

\---

Rich doesn’t think there's going to be a third time. Against all odds, there is. Michael walks in with his head down and his hands stuffed in the pockets of the signature Michael Mell red hoodie. He stops in the middle of the room and is shifting his weight as he looks up toward Rich. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Rich gets it out before Michael has a chance to say anything. A “please don’t hate me” goes unspoken in his head. He can’t handle the thought of Michael being mad at him. He doesn’t want to see Michael mad at him. Doesn’t matter. Rich can’t fix it; he’s never able to fix it. He figures it’s better to get the yelling over with. But it never happens.

“Oh, um, thanks Rich but I actually came over to apologize to you,” Michael rubs a hand to the back of his neck, “So, I’m sorry.’

‘For what?”

“For pushing you. You obviously didn’t want to talk about it. I took it personally and didn’t think about why you wouldn’t want to talk.” 

“But I was rude,” Rich insists. It was his fault; he had fucked it up. Why didn’t Michael see that? “I could’ve handled it better.” 

“Maybe. But so could I.” Michael nods towards the chair, “So, we good man?”

“Yeah we’re good.”

Michael goes through the whole routine. He sits, moves the side table, and pulls out his homework. He smiles as he pulls his phone out. “Any requests?”

“Nope.” This is mainly because Rich doesn’t really know any music. He hated everything the SQUIP made him listen to and can’t remember what kind of music he liked before. But Michael has good taste. He’s also played wildly different styles the past two days and Rich kinda wants to see how much music Michael knows. Plus, if it’s Michael’s music then Rich can watch him mouth along to the words as he does his homework. 

Even with the music it’s too quiet. Michael has apparently decided not to talk at all. Which means he’ll finish his homework sooner. Which means he might leave sooner. 

“I started physical therapy today.”

\---

“Any requests?” 

Rich smiles, “Jeremy says you like Bob Marley. Have you played any of him yet?”

“Oh? You and Jeremy talked about me?”

“Nah, I just asked him what you're always playing in those huge headphones of yours.So technically we talked about your headphones not you.”

Michael laughs, “No I haven’t played any Marley yet but I guess now I have to huh?.”

“You asked, I answered Mell. Seems like a legally binding agreement if you ask me.”

\---

Michael comes everyday now. He rambles about nearly everything. Math homework, music history, obscure video games, or how everyone at school is. Everyone who got SQUIPed at the play hangs out pretty regularly now. If you had asked Rich before if Chole, Jake, Brooke, and Jenna would be friends with people like Jeremy, Michael, and Christine, he never would have believed it. It was still weird to imagine but apparently they all got along. 

None of them have come to see him. Rich doesn’t blame them but he won’t pretend that it doesn’t hurt a little bit. They could’ve at least texted. Sure, Rich couldn’t move his arms for a bit. But now he had finally gotten his phone working and there was nothing. He had needed Michael to buy him a charger. He would have borrowed Michael’s but Michael has an android and Rich doesn’t (the SQUIP made him get Apple. Rich didn’t see why it mattered but he complied anyway). He has a charger at home which Michael offered to pick up but Rich shut that down pretty quick. He would rather owe Michael money then have him anywhere near his house. 

It wasn’t until after he turned his phone on that Rich figured out that people thought he was dead. He scrolled through some of the notifications but there were too many. He just ended up posting one of those cliche black background pics on his snap story captioned, “not dead. in the hospital. should be out soon(ish).” 

But if his old (SQUIP) friends had been hanging out with Michael and Jeremy, then they knew he was alive. Unless they failed to bring it up, which seems unlikely. 

“Rich? You good?”

Rich had forgotten Michael was here. “Y-yeah, I’m good.”

“Really? Cause no offense but you’ve just been staring at your phone for like 20 minutes.”

Talking about your feelings sucks. Especially when Rich can practically hear the SQUIP in his head. Try having a supercomputer in your brain that yells and shocks you whenever you say the wrong thing and you would hate being emotionally vulnerable too. 

“Should I text them?” 

Michael’s pencil hovers over the homework he’d been doing. He doesn’t need to ask to know who Rich means. “Up to you man. But I know that they would be down to talk.”

“Then why haven’t they?” Fuck, Rich hates whenever he sounds upset. Makes him feel a lot smaller than he actually is.

“Are you scared to talk to them?”

“Yeah.”

‘Dude. So are they.”

Rich kinda hates when Michael makes sense. Doesn’t make him any less of a coward though. 

\---

Rich really doesn’t want to leave the hospital. Going back home and going back to school just both seem like far too much to handle. He had just gotten to the point where he could see his scars without spiraling into a panic attack. The hospital was removed from the outside world and Rich had been kinda hoping for it to stay that way. 

Plus, Rich still is bad at the whole being a person sans SQUIP thing. His doctor had tried to make small talk yesterday and Rich just stared at him for 30 full seconds before answering. Sure, he was getting better at talking with Michael. But that was Michael. And it was rarely anything substantial. He would talk about what happened in physical therapy or the plot lines of the soap opera that played on the T.V. Rich had only watched it because the remote was broken and he hadn’t figured out how to turn it off. At first he hadn’t minded, it gave him something to do so he wasn’t planning on bothering anyone about it. Then one of the characters got a chip in their head and one of the nurses found him hyperventilating. So he got the remote fixed. 

Which is kinda the point. If he couldn’t even watch a stupid T.V show how in the hell was he supposed to go back to living his life?

“Hey Rich,” Michael said as he walked into the room. That was another problem Rich had. Without the hospital he wouldn’t get this anymore. Leaving the hospital felt like losing Michael, no matter how hard he hoped that he and Michael would stay friends, he knew it was possible that they might not. 

“Hi Michael.” Rich sees Michael smile as he sits down. He pulls his phone out and simply raises his eyebrows. ‘No, I don’t have any requests,” Rich laughs.

“Great cause I found this awesome new band.” With the music playing Michael pulls out his homework. “Hey, do you know when you’re getting released?”

Yes. He gets out Friday. Rich gets out in two days and he still hasn’t told Michael yet. He just has this gut feeling that Michael is going to offer to drive him home or something like that. But he can’t have Michael near his house. He just can’t. He needs these things to be seperate to keep some semblance of a normal life. “Uh, I think soonish.”

“Well, tell me when you find out”

“Yeah, for sure.”

\---

This fucking sucked. Most of his clothes had burned in the fire so he was walking home in a pair of sweatpants the hospital had given him and a slightly burnt t-shirt. Turns out getting released from the hospital and walking for an hour in 40 degree weather wasn’t the best idea. Too late to turn back now. 

**Rich (12:35):** sorry man i just found out im getting released today

 **Michael (12:37):** thats great dude! when?

 **Rich (12:40):** um kinda now? they needed the empty bed so

 **Michael (12:41):** I have lunch next do you need a ride??

 **Rich (12:42):** nah use ur lunch to eat ill be fine im already on the way home

 **Rich (12:42):** thx tho

 **Michael (12:43):** you sure? I have time

 **Rich (12:43):** im good see u monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact Days of our Lives did have a plotline where a character had a computer chip in their head so i didn't just make it up.


	4. Chapter 4

Rich had given up on sleeping. He had tried, but he couldn’t stop thinking about school in the morning. He had pictured it going wrong in every way possible but couldn’t figure out one way it could go right. Everyone was going to be talking about him. Or they were going to talk to him. And they were all going to expect different things. They would expect the confident bully or the arsonist. Rich wasn’t either of those things, at least he didn’t want to be. 

What would they get? Some shy kid who couldn’t even talk properly, the kid he was freshman year? He didn’t think he was that either. Well, not exactly the same anyway. He reached over blindly in the dark until his hand found his phone. He turned it on checking the time. 5:15.Yeah, he definitely wasn’t sleeping. Might as well start getting ready. The hour or so of sleep he might get wouldn’t be worth it and staring anxiously at his ceiling was not helping.

He got up quietly so he wouldn’t wake up his dad and started to look for his bag. Somehow, it had gotten shoved under his bed. He opened it up finding a few folders, a pencil, and 1 blue pen. Right. You don’t need a lot of school supplies when your portable head computer takes care of everything school related. He opened up his closet and looked before finding a couple old notebooks on the shelf. He silently thanked any previous teacher who told them they would require a notebook for a class and then never used it. 

He didn’t think he needed anything else to write with. At least not immediately. He could probably buy a cheap pack of pens or pencils later on. Fuck he was going to need a job. Focus. One problem at a time. He needed to get dressed.

Wow, the SQUIP really liked tank tops. And it’s not that Rich hated them (okay maybe he hated them a little), it’s just that he didn’t want to wear them now. The whole plan was to go unnoticed and showing off his arms, with the way they looked now, felt like walking around with a giant billboard that said “Hey look at me! I burned down a house!” He finds a plain black t-shirt and pulls on the softest and most unassuming hoodie he can find. He doesn’t have a lot of variety for pants so he just grabs the first pair of jeans he can find. He briefly worries if the jeans will be uncomfortable against the scars until he remembers that that area of his thigh doesn’t have as many nerve endings anymore. 

What a totally not depressing reminder to start his day. 

He’s brushing his teeth as he runs a hand through his hair and studies it in the mirror. He had spent an hour yesterday cutting off the singed tips. Rich is by no means a hair stylist but it doesn’t look too horrible. The dye is starting to fade though. He might redo it. That was one of the SQUIP style choices he actually liked. 

It's still early but it might be better to leave now anyway. He might come across less people. He grabs his backpack and starts looking for his phone. Misplacing things was a part of life he had totally forgotten up until leaving the hospital. Computers tend to remember where they put things.

He pulls the blankets off his bed and hears a clunk. He sighs as he bends over to pick his phone up from the floor. Luckily, it isn’t cracked. It’s 6:30. He shoves the phone into his pocket and heads out the door.

\---

As he nears the school, he puts his hood up. It’s not a lot but hopefully people will be less likely to notice him this way. There were more people than he expected. It was a little after 7:00. First period didn’t start until 7:45. He put his hands in his pockets and looked firmly at the ground as he walked into the school. 

He navigates to the English hallway without much of a problem. Once he gets there though, he realizes that he doesn’t know which class is his. The doors are so close together that Rich truly can’t remember which one he’s supposed to walk into. A look in the rooms doesn’t reveal much; they’re nearly identical with no posters or other identifiers to tell them apart.The desks are even oriented the same way. He had only been gone for a few weeks. How could he not remember? Was he really this incompetent? That he let a stupid computer control his life this much? What kind of person lets something take over your life to that extent and just doesn’t care?

You, he thinks. You’re that kind of person. Lazy. _Weak._

Stop. He makes a conscious effort to slow his breathing. It’s fine. People forget things all the time. It’s normal. He walks over to the end of the hallway and leans against a wall so he can check his schedule on his phone. He’s just about to pull it up when he hears a voice.

“Hoods off.” Some teacher Rich doesn’t recognize has walked up to him. It’s a dumb rule and with the SQUIP he probably would have argued. He’s really not in the mood for a confrontation right now so he pulls the hood down.

The teacher’s eyes linger on his face before continuing down the hallway. Rich doesn’t recognize him but he knows that this teacher knows who he is. Which is the exact thing he had been trying to avoid. He feels exposed but keeps the hood down. Some other adult would tell him to put it back down again eventually so he better get used to it. He looks down at his phone; the room number is 233. He’s about to start walking over when he hears a girl call out his name.

“Rich!” Brooke waves as she walks toward him. Fuck. He regrets not putting the hood back up. Calm down, it’s fine. You and Brooke are friends. 

No, he tells himself. The SQUIP and Brooke were friends. You are a stranger to her. She’s getting closer. Stay calm, you were going to have to talk anyway. She’s next to him, when did that happen?

“Hey,’ she says looking at him. 

“Hey.” Rich needed to apologize, Brooke deserved an explanation of everything that had happened. They all did. He can’t say sorry, he’ll lisp. He can’t lisp in front of Brooke. Why? Why’s she different then Jeremy and Michael? Because she’s cool, which still means more to him then he’d ever care to admit. “Brooke, I’m not me alright? I’m not the... ~~same person~~ guy you knew. ~~So, I’m sorry.~~ I lied. I-”

“Rich, it’s alright. Jeremy explained it to everyone.”

“Everyone?” He must sound panicked cause Brooke quickly corrects.

“No! Like everyone at the play, you know, who had one,” Brooke gestures toward her head before moving on, “Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. I think tha-”

Brooke’s voice fades as Rich stares across the hallway. Jenna Rolan is looking right at them.She catches his gaze and quickly looks down at her phone and starts texting. Fuck, okay. It’s going to be okay. She’s probably not talking about him. She looks back in his direction again before turning back to her phone. Shit.

“Rich?” Brooke looks worried. How long has she been talking? How long has he not been responding?

“ ~~Sorry~~ Look, I’ll catch you later alright?” He’s walking now. He doesn’t really have a destination in mind. The only clear thought going through his head right now is _get out._

He ends up in a bathroom that is miraculously empty. He’s crying. Why’s he crying? People were going to figure out he was back anyway. What did it matter if they found out from Jenna? In moments, the feeling is gone and Rich feels incredibly stupid. He had reacted over nothing. He was preparing to leave when the door opens and in walks Jeremy.

“Hey.” The door shuts behind him. “I’m not going to lie to you, okay? Brooke texted me, said you ran off in the middle of a conversation and she was worried.” Jeremy shifts awkwardly ”So, you good man?”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine” Rich is surprised to find that he kinda means it. Jeremy raises his eyebrows and Rich turns to look in the mirror to see that it still obviously looks like he’s been crying. He wipes the tears off his face. “Really. I’m good. Good is just a relative term right now.”

“Alright, I get that.” Jeremy just stands there. Rich had kinda hoped that the conversation would end there but apparently it’s talk about your feelings time. 

“I just… got overwhelmed. Once I had a second to think about shit I was fine but in the moment… I don’t know dude. It felt super sudden I guess.”

Jeremy shrugs. “Probably the SQUIP right? It would have tried controlling your emotions and stuff. This is the first time you're experiencing normal life in what? Two years?”

Rich nods, “I didn’t really think of that.”

Jeremy sighs, “What’s your first class?”

“English”

“Great, I’m heading that way anyway.”

It takes Rich a second to recognize the invitation, “You don’t have t-”

“Rich. Friends walk in the hallways together. Deal with it man.”

“We’re friends?” Rich hadn’t meant to say it but it came out anyway.

Jeremy smiles, “Yeah, I think we’re getting there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should be able to update more frequently now that I'm done with school until the fall. No promises though.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I know I said I wasn't going to write out Rich's lisp phonetically but for one part of this chapter I did because I thought it was easier to read. But to clarify Rich always has a lisp whether I write it or not.

Rich has no clue what’s happening in any of his classes. Nearly every teacher had dropped a huge packet on his desk and informed him that finishing it correctly would give him credit for all the work he missed. Which seems like a fair deal until you realize that he has 7 to finish. Along with staying up to date with the regular coursework. 

Other than that things are fine. Rich finds that if you stare down at your desk no one really talks to you. It might also help that they thought he was dead. Or maybe they thought he burned a house down. Or maybe it was because he spent a year and a half bullying people. He prefers to think it’s the lack of eye contact. He doesn’t like to think about the fact that people are scared of him. 

Lunch is a whole other story. At the hospital Michael had mentioned that the whole group eats together. He also was very happy to find out that Rich had the same lunch period as all of them. Rich knew Michael wanted him to eat lunch with them. And Rich wanted that too.

But he couldn’t. It was too much. Talking to everyone at once was going to be exhausting. And he knew no matter how hard he tried the conversations would be focused on him. So when the bell rang Rich walked past the cafeteria. He kept walking until he ended up outside. He hadn’t planned to be outside but it was better than nothing. Plus it was less populated. There were some people by the bleachers so he avoided those. He ended up sitting under a tree that was to the side of the football field. 

He thought about doing homework but decided against it. Now wasn’t the time. He needed a break from the world. The world however, had other ideas. 

**Michael (12:50):** Where are you?

 **Michael (12:50):** Do you need to know where we sit or anything?

Shit. Rich didn't mean to stand up Michael. He thought about lying, saying that a teacher told him to work during lunch to make up for the time he missed. Or just ignoring it. But he couldn’t. Not to Michael. Besides, he needed to get in the habit of talking to people. He was gaining nothing from avoiding hard conversations. 

**Rich (12:51):** hey dude sorry

 **Rich (12:51):** todays been a lot u know? kinda needed to chill if thats okay

He waits. Michael doesn’t respond

 **Rich (12:53):** i am sorry

 **Rich (12:53):** i promise ill come tomorrow i just couldnt today

 **Michael (12:53):** Thats fine! Dont apologize

 **Michael (12:54):** And do stuff when you feel ready dont feel pressured to do stuff that makes you super uncomfortable. 

**Rich (12:54):** thanks mell

 **Rich (12:54):** what about everyone else? are they cool with it?

 **Michael (12:55):** They get it

\---

It’s finally the last class of the day. They have a sub which means that there is not a lot of learning going on. Most people have been sitting around talking but Rich has been looking through the mountain of homework he has collected throughout the day. He has no clue how to do any of it. He wonders if Michael would be willing to help him with it. 

He looks up at the clock. There’s 10 minutes left of class. He’s not going to teach himself physics by then so he slides the papers into his bag. He pulls his phone out and unlocks it. He tries to ignore his hands shaking. 

He needs to do this. Hell, he wants to do this. But he also knows that this could go badly. In fact, he’s expecting it to. Which is what makes this so nerve wracking.

 **Rich (3:01):** we should talk

 **Rich (3:01):** after school today maybe? it wont take long i know youre probably busy

 **Jake (3:05):** im free today where do you wanna talk

 **Rich (3:05):** we can meet by the backdoor?? idk whatever works for you 

**Jake (3:06):** thats fine ill have to grab stuff outta my locker so ill be a minute

Fuck. This was happening. He was going to talk to Jake. He was prepared for Jake to be mad at him. It was inevitable. But he still needs to try and make things right. No matter how useless that might be. 

More importantly he needs to make sure Jake is okay. The dude doesn't have a house. He broke both of his legs. He may have lied to Jake throughout their entire friendship but that doesn’t mean that Rich didn’t care about him. Jake is a cool dude who deserves closure and a best friend who isn’t named Rich Goranski. 

The bell rings. Shit. He grabs his bag and walks out the door. 

He reaches the back of the school and finds a place against the wall. Jake is going to be here any minute. He should probably plan out what he’s going to say. The apology is the important thing. He doesn’t want to lisp in front of Jake. If he can avoid s’s and make the “sorry” come out mostly clear he might be able to pull it off. Jake’s not going to want to hang out with him after this so one more lie doesn’t matter right?

The hallway has cleared out by now. He takes a breath, “thorry.” Shit, he’s going to sound like an idiot. He tries again, “thorry.” Damnit, it’s one fucking word how hard can it be.He feels his hand come up and hit the side of his head. “Fuck, I’m thorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

Shit. It’s Jake. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Fuckfuckfuckfuck where is he supposed to go from here?

“Everything.” Wow, amazing Rich. You were supposed to deliver a heartfelt, sincere apology and instead you were super vague.

“Could you be more specific?” 

“I’m sorry for lying to you,” too late to hide the lisp now since Jake already knows, “I’m sorry for burning down your house. I’m sorry you broke your legs. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He doesn’t look mad. Why doesn’t he look mad? It’s quiet, why isn’t he talking? This is not how this was supposed to go. Jake sighs and walks over to stand next to Rich. What the fuck is happening?

“Thanks,” he looks down to his side to make eye contact with Rich, “I forgive you okay? I want you to know that.”

“That’s not fair.”

“What?” Jake takes a step back.

“It’s not fair. I don’t get to make every mistake in the book and be forgiven okay? You should be mad, you should blame me, just _do_ something.” 

Jake sighs, “Look, I was mad. But just at first. It’s fine now.”

“Why? Because you found out I had a computer in my head?” Rich is yelling now.

“It’s not like that.” Jake steps forward and Rich backs into the corner of the hallway. Jake looks upset but backs off.

“Then what's it like?”

It’s annoying how calm Jake is being. “People are allowed to make mistakes, regardless of a SQUIP.” 

“Normal people don’t make the mistakes I made!” How can Jake not get it? “I.. I should have tried to fight it earlier.”

“Rich, what matters is that you fought it at all,” Jake smiles.

Fuck. How can he be so chill with this? Rich hadn’t prepared for this. “So what, we’re supposed to be friends now?” Why is he mad? He wants to stay friends with Jake. But he also needs him to understand. Rich needs to be held accountable for the shit he did. 

Jake shrugs, “I want to be.”

“I ruined your life”

“No you didn’t.” Jake looks sincere. How is that fucking possible?

“Really? I burned down your house and you broke both your legs. If that doesn’t ruin your life, I don’t know what will.”

“Rich, you know I hated that house. Plus, I really like living with my aunt and uncle. It was boring being by myself all the time.” Jake puts his hand in his pockets, “And I broke my legs saving a guy who was going through a tough time. A guy who was, and hopefully still is, a good friend of mine. And I don't regret it.”

Rich is quiet. He hadn’t expected it to be this easy. He doesn’t know how to feel about it. Frankly, it scares him but he’s not sure why. 

Jake speaks up again, “Do you need a ride?”

“No.”

Jake furrows his eyebrows, “Wait, are you actually mad at me right now?”

“I don’t know,” Rich answers. And he doesn’t. “I..I just don't know, okay? I gotta go, I’ll see you around Jake.” He turns and walks out the door. He can hear Jake calling after him.

“Dude! Come on man, we can keep talking”

Fuck. He screwed this up. He wants to turn back, he wants to apologize but he doesn’t. He keeps walking until he can’t hear Jake anymore. He turns his head back and Jake’s not there. Shit.

\---

 **Michael (5:37):** Hey I talked with Jake

 **Michael (5:37):** I dont have the full story… but

 **Michael (5:37):** Rich? You know youre allowed to be forgiven right?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw-Rich is anxious and spirals a bit and has a panic attack (i wanted to write it more like being on the edge of a panic attack but you never know so be safe)

Rich is at home sitting on his bed. He doesn’t remember when he got home or how long he’s been there. He just knows that everything feels wrong. Why did he do that? _Why did he do that?_ Why? He just kept fucking up. Without the SQUIP he was nothing. He was incapable of doing anything right. _Why did he do that?_ He just kept screwing everything up. Why did he-

His phone buzzes. He turns it on and notices that it’s after 5:30. He’s been here for hours. How does that happen? Michael’s texting him. Shit. He opens the message. Oh.

Oh.

Fuck.

He can’t think. “You know you’re allowed to be forgiven right?” He knew that. 

“You know you’re allowed to be forgiven right?”

Why would Michael even text that? It was stating the obvious. 

You know you’re allowed to be forgiven right?

You’re allowed to be forgiven  
_You're allowed to be forgiven_  
**You're allowed to be forgiven**

He doesn’t even realize he’s called Michael until he hears the voice come across the line. 

“Rich? Rich are you there?”

“Why am I so messed up?”

“What?”

“I think I wanted him to hate me. Why would I want that? Why would I want him to hate me? I don’t know what I was thinking Michael. I don’t k-”

“Rich. Take a breath; It's going to be okay.”

“No! It’s not Michael because I don’t want him to hate me but now he’s going to and-”

“Rich, I promise he doesn’t hate you. Believe me, I know I haven’t known Jake as long as you have but I know he just wants you to be okay. He doesn’t hate you.”

“He should.” They both go quiet for a moment. “Shit, why do I keep doing that?”

Michael doesn’t say anything for a while. Rich can tell he’s still there because he can hear him breathing. It’s slow and controlled which is the opposite of Rich’s right now.

“Because it feels safer. It’s easier to think that people hate you because it hurts less if they actually do. It’s better to be proven right then be disappointed.”

Well, fuck. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make everything... make sense. I don’t know what’s going through my head half the time and you come along and say the right shit.” 

“Because I get it Rich. The anxiety, the overthinking, the being overwhelmed over nothing? I understand all that. Sure, our experiences and reasons may be totally different but…” Michael falters for a second then continues, “the foundations of being fucked up are kinda the same.”

“But you’re not fucked up.”

Michael laughs a little, “No, I’m not.”

Rich’s head is spinning. Michael is an anxious teen; he’s anxious but that’s okay. It’s normal to not always be normal. He takes a breath. 

“So...so I’m not fucked up? Like I can fuck up but I’m not fucked up? Does that make sense?”

“Yeah.” He can practically hear Michael smiling. 

“Wait, yeah it makes sense or yeah to what I said?”

“Yes to both.”

Rich thinks about that for a minute. He leans back until he’s laying down in his bed. He hears Michael speak up again.

“Rich, moral of the story is that you're not the horrible person you think you are. I know that being nice to yourself is hard but you deserve it okay?”

“Okay” Another minute passes. “Hey Michael?

“Yeah?” 

“Thanks”

“No problem dude.”

They both go quiet again. It reminds Rich of the hospital, where they could just exist without the pressure of having to do anything. The silence is comfortable, safe. After a bit, Rich decides to speak up again. 

“Michael? I’ll see you tomorrow at school, alright?”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah”

They spend a few more minutes on the phone, neither saying much of anything before they eventually exchange goodbyes and hang up. He meant what he said to Michael. He was going to go to lunch. He wanted to talk, actually talk, with Jake and Brooke and everyone else. It was going to suck. He would probably say something wrong or not be able to say anything at all. Conversations without the SQUIP were hard. There was no perfect scenario. But that’s okay. 

Because he was going to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter then usual so sorry for that but I think its a good length for what was happening. Also Rich will get better I promise (it just might take a bit)


	7. Chapter 7

Rich is already at school. He went straight to that spot up against the lockers because he was too scared to text Brooke asking if they could meet up. He figured if she saw him here yesterday then they might run into each other again. Turns out he’s right; he can see her at the end of the hallway, a few minutes away. Except for one thing. She’s with Chloe. 

Rich’s relationship with Chloe was… weird. He (well, him and the SQUIP) had befriended Brooke. But at the beginning, Chloe had just been Jake’s girlfriend. So, they knew each other and they had talked but they had never been friends. Even after she and Jake broke up, the SQUIP didn’t have him talk to her often. 

Plus, Chloe is kinda intimidating. He had been hesitant to talk to anyone, but talking to Chloe without the SQUIP scared him. He was lucky Jake hadn’t mentioned the lisp, yesterday. He didn’t think Brooke would give him shit for it, but Chloe might. 

It doesn’t matter. If they hate you, they hate you. If they don’t, then they don’t. Either way, Rich wanted to set the record straight. He can’t control how they act, but he can control how he does.

Fuck, they’re getting closer. It’s easier to be optimistic at a distance. Shit, okay this was going to be fine. It was just talking. Michael’s friends with them now; he wouldn’t be friends with people who were assholes right? 

Brooke is making eye contact with him so it’s now or never. He gives a small wave in return. Was that stupid? Did people still wave anymore? Was he overthinking this? Probably. He sees Brooke whisper something to Chloe and they both walk over to where he’s standing. 

“Hey Rich,” Brooke says. It’s quieter than usual and she seems nervous. Rich gets the impression that she’s trying to prevent him from freaking out. He appreciates it but doesn’t like the fact that people feel like they have to walk on eggshells around him. Even if some of that is his fault. 

‘Hey Brooke,” he glances over quickly, “Hi Chloe.” Chloe nods but doesn’t say anything back. God, this is hard. He shoves his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt and continues, “Look, I know you told me Jeremy filled you guys in so I’m going to skip over a lot of the backstory, alright?”

Moment of truth. He pauses to look up and watch the reactions to the lisp. Neither says anything, which is a relief. Brooke smiles encouragingly and Chloe slips her phone into her pocket which is actually a fairly good sign. This might not be as horrible as he thought. 

“Ok, so you both know I had a SQUIP. Which means not everything I’ve said to you has been me, like actually me. A lot of it, most of it, was the SQUIP talking.” He takes a breath before moving on, “What I’m saying is that I’m sorry. I’ve been lying to you and kinda manipulating you and I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay Rich,” Brooke replies. “I accept your apology.” It’s formal but sweet and Rich is reminded of how nice Broke is, especially when she isn’t trying to be the cool girl. 

Chloe finally speaks up, “It’s whatever Rich. We all had them in the play for a way shorter time than you so we get how they just take over.”

_That's not the point. I still messed up, I shouldn’t have let it take over. I should have been better. You were SQUIPed against your will, I choose it. That makes it different._ He thinks back to the conversation he had with Michael yesterday and Rich practically bites his tongue to keep from replying. He takes a moment to steady himself. 

“Thanks. Look, no pressure alright? If you guys don’t want to hang out with me anymore we don’t have t-”

“What?,” Brooke says. “No, we still want to hang out with you, Right Chloe?”

“Yeah, for sure.” Chloe pulls out her phone and glances at the time. “Come on Brooke, we gotta go.” Chloe throws up a peace sign before turning and leaving.

“Oh! Okay, well I’ll see you later Rich!” She turns to follow Chloe but before she leaves she gives a small wave. Rich smiles and returns the wave by giving two finger-guns. He watches them both walk down the hallway.

Finger-guns? Really, Rich? The goal was to not be as awkward as possible. Whatever, as a whole, the conversation went well. Chloe wasn’t super enthusiastic but she wasn’t usually, so that made sense. Plus, they had never really been close. 

The bell rings, which unfortunately means that Rich has to go to English.

\---  
He’s walking to math when he sees him. Not that he’s hard to see, Jake’s pretty tall. He figures this is the best chance he’s going to get. He starts to speed up and navigates through the crowded hallway until he’s standing next to him.

“Ay yo Jakey D.” It’s quiet but loud enough for Jake to hear. He looks down, surprised, but then immediately turns his focus back forward. 

“Hey Rich. Look I-”

“Jake stop,” Rich interrupts, “I’m sorry. Again. I was an asshole yesterday. I… I was upset at myself for a lot of stuff but I took it out on you.”

Jake turns back and smiles, “Are you going to get mad at me if I say I forgive you again?”

“No,” Rich laughs.

“Good, cause I do. It’s fine man. Feelings are weird, alright? I get it.” They turn a corner and Jake stops in front of a door. “I gotta go, Rich.” He gestures toward the classroom next to them.

“Yeah, see you later man.” He watches him walk into the room before continuing on to math. That went better than he thought it would. Sure, they weren’t best friends like they used to be but that was expected.

\---

The cafeteria is too loud. There are people everywhere and Rich is overcome with the extreme urge to bail. _No, you promised Michael._ It doesn’t take too long to find the group. He only scans the crowd for a few seconds before his eyes land on Michael’s bright red hoodie. He can’t see Michael’s face but he’s standing next to a guy in a blue cardigan which seems like too much of a coincidence for it not to be Michael and Jeremy. He takes a deep breath and walks over to the table.

As he gets closer, he can see the rest of the group. Jenna and that girl from the play, Christine, are having an animated conversation about something. He watches as Jeremy sits down next Christine and apparently says something funny because the whole table laughs. He stops walking; this feels like some sort of intrusion. The weeks he spent in the hospital they spent becoming friends. Rich doesn’t want to spend his time at lunch playing catch up. 

He should leave, he can just text Michael later. He’ll tell him that it would be too awkward to eat with them after everything that happened. He would understand. But he can’t move. He feels frozen, just standing there staring at the people he should be friends with. 

He sees Michael pull out his phone and look at it for a minute. Then, he turns around and looks around the cafeteria before making eye contact with Rich. He smiles but when he realizes Rich isn’t actively moving he stops. He turns toward the table, says something, and then starts to make his way over to him. 

He barely has time to process that Michael is walking over. One second he’s at the table and the next he’s standing next to him. 

“Hey Rich.”

Rich blinks and looks up, “Hi Michael.”

“Rich, you good man?”

“Um…” Rich doesn’t know. He feels like he can’t really think. Nothing has happened, yet it feels as though too much is happening too fast. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Michael brings his hand up, as if he’s about to wrap his arm around Rich’s shoulders, but he hesitates and places his hand in the pocket of his sweatshirt. “Look, Rich If you don’t want t-”

“No.” He can’t let Michael think that he doesn’t like him, because he does. Worse, he doesn’t want Michael to think he’s not capable of socializing. He begins to walk toward the table, noticeably faster then he usually would. Michael quickens his own pace to catch up and they both arrive at the table. 

Jeremy looks up first, “Hey Rich.”

The whole group looks toward him and various versions of “hey” are thrown around as Rich sits down at the empty seat between Michael and Jake. Everyone goes back to talking. And it’s fine. There’s no awkwardness, there’s no accusations thrown around. Jenna passes her phone around to show people some meme while Chloe is talking about something that happened in her history class. Everyone is acting like it’s totally normal that Rich is there.

Suddenly, Rich feels Jake elbow him slightly. He glances toward him and before he can even ask why he sees Jake nod his head toward Christine. She’s staring at him, eyebrows slightly raised. 

“What?” It comes out harsher than he intended and he immediately regrets it. She had been leaning forward, elbows on the table, but as soon as he spoke she backed up letting her arms fall to her side. The table has gone momentarily quiet and he hates it. Hates how fast he can ruin things, hates that he keeps getting it wrong no matter how hard he tries. Hates how much he sounded like the old Rich, the one with SQUIP. “Sorry, I zoned out for a second. What’s up?”

“It was nothing,” Christine replies with a small shrug. “I was just wondering how your classes are going.”

“They’re fine,” he lies quickly. 

“Oh, ok.” Christine looks upset. At least he thinks she looks upset. Why? 

God, he’s an idiot. It wasn’t about the classes. She had wanted a conversation and he had shut her down. 

“Actually, um, they kinda suck? I feel like I missed too much and I never know what’s going on.” 

“We can all help if you need. I’m fairly good at English and anything writing related so I can help you there,” she smiles. “Plus, there’s enough of us here that everybody is going to be good at something.”

“Except physics,” Jake chimes in, “I think physics is one of those subjects that everyone is bad in.”

Rich notices that everyone laughs except for Chloe, which is weird because she used to flirt with Jake constantly, when they were and weren’t dating. He remembers her laughing at practically everything Jake said, regardless of whether or not it was a joke. 

“Well, then we can figure out physics together,” Christine says. 

“Yeah Chris, that would be really cool.”

Christine perks up, nearly bouncing in her seat, and the next thing Rich knows he’s pulling out the numerous homework packets and handing them over to her. She’s flipping through them and talking to him excitedly. 

“Don’t worry, most of this will be simple. This was one of my favorite books, you’re going to love it.” 

He listens to her ramble for a while. Other people jump in occasionally, pointing out units or subjects they were particularly good at and offering him advice. Unfortunately, the bell rings and he’s putting everything back in his backpack. 

“Oh! Rich, I totally forgot to mention this earlier, “Brooke says as she gets up from the table. “On Fridays we all go get frozen yogurt at Pinkberry, you should come!”

He quickly looks over to judge everyone else’s reactions. They all seem to agree, well, at least no one seems visibly annoyed at Brooke for offering the invitation. He glances over at Michael who smiles and nods before putting on his headphones. 

“”Yeah Brooke,” Rich says. “For sure.”

She smiles back at him and they all go there separate ways. This felt weird, but a good weird. Like he might be able to pull off the whole being a person thing. It all feels amazingly normal. And it feels more real than any moment he had with the SQUIP.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took longer then expected because I got busy and then my computer started acting weird, but it's here now!


	8. Chapter 8

The rest of the week passes relatively quickly. Rich was getting used to hanging out with everybody again. As the week went on, talking at lunch felt less and less awkward. Not that it had been particularly awkward in the first place, but Rich had a tendency to feel awkward in most situations. 

Rich exits the school and sees a majority of the group waiting out by the parking lot. Today was the day they were getting Pinkberry. It feels stupid, but Rich is excited. Hanging out outside of school feels different to hanging out at lunch. It makes him feel as though they actually forgive him, like they really want to become friends again. 

He walks over and ends up next to Jake. They both fistbump as Rich looks around, “Hey, what’s up?”

“Not much,” Chloe says, “We’re just waiting for Jeremy and Christine to show up.”

“We don’t need to wait much longer,” Jenna adds, “They just texted; they said they’re outside.” She scans the crowd of highschoolers exiting the building and points, “There they are.”

Rich follows her gaze and, sure enough, Jeremy and Christine are getting closer. They’re holding hands. Rich hasn’t asked anyone but he’s pretty sure they’re dating. They finally make their way over.

“Hi! You guys ready?” Christine is bouncing slightly on her toes. Rich can never tell if she’s just always excited or if she’s just really hyperactive. It’s probably both. 

“Yup,” Brooke replies, “We were just waiting for you guys.”

The group splits in two, with Jenna, Jake, Brooke and Chloe heading towards one car and Michael, Jeremy, and Christine heading towards the other. Rich realizes he has a choice to make. It seems fairly obvious; he should go into Michael’s car so that there are four people in each. Heck, he wants to go in Michael’s car. But it’s complicated. Before the play, he would have joined Jake, no questions asked. And part of him still wants to. Jake has paused to look at him and he can tell that Jake expects him to join him.

Jake is his friend. But Rich doesn’t know if he’s his best friend. Rich doesn’t even know if he has a best friend right now. Navigating relationships after the SQUIP was weird. It kinda felt like respawning in a video game after you die. Everything that happened in the last playthrough happened. But now you’re restarting so none of it counts. Even if you use the knowledge of your last attempt to make this one better. 

Rich gets the benefit of knowing everything about Jake but all of the friendship parts have to start over, even if it feels like you’ve done it before. Which makes everything just a bit awkward. 

Jake is still looking at him and he raises his eyebrows. Rich takes a step backward, towards Michael's car and just says, “I’ll see you there, dude.”

If it bothers Jake he doesn’t show it. He just nods before continuing on with the rest of the girls. Rich turns completely around and joins Michael and the others. Is it bad to want to be in Michael’s car? Everything just felt… easier with Michael. With Jake, he felt pressured to be a version of the guy he was before, the guy he didn’t want to be. But unfortunately, the guy Jake and everyone else in that car had become friends with.

They approach Michael's slightly beat up, red PT cruiser and Jeremy and Christine both get in the backseat. Which means that Rich gets to sit shotgun. Next to Michael. He gets in and looks over at Michael. Somehow, this feels bigger than it should. Like sitting in the front seat is some crazy declaration of their friendship. 

Michael gives him a quick smile before pulling out his phone. “Any requests?”

Christine pipes up from the backseat, “Requests for what?”

“For music,” Michael replies as he puts the keys into the ignition. 

“Hold up,” Jeremy says, “For as long as you’ve had this car you’ve only ever played your music. You’ve never let me play anything. Now all of a sudden it’s 'any requests?'”

“Well, Jeremy, maybe I’ve turned over a new leaf.” 

“So you’ll play different songs now?”

“Maybe. I do have the power to veto any song that happens to come from someone with bad taste.” Michael turns over and winks at Rich before pulling the car out of the parking lot. 

“Which means you’ll veto anything I suggest.” Jeremy throws his hands up in the air, “Why even ask the question anyway?”

Because it was a joke, Rich thinks. An inside joke from the hospital and I’m the only one who gets it. Michael made a joke and it was just for me. Wow. This is...Rich doesn’t know what this is. He feels… happy? Yeah. This is good. It feels-

Christine interrupts his chain of thought, “What about-”

“I’m not playing any musicals, Christine.”

\---

It’s not until he has walked into the Pinkberry that Rich realizes. He’s never had frozen yogurt before. Which is weird when he thinks about it. Because Chloe and Brooke went all the time. But Jake never went because he always has practice and the SQUIP had been weird about him hanging out with the girls alone. If he wasn’t about to date or dating one of them then it didn’t see the point.

This shouldn’t be a problem. It’s frozen yogurt, not rocket science. But there are a lot of options and it’s honestly freaking Rich out a little bit. Because he’s barely made any decisions in almost 2 years. 

Everyone is walking around the restaurant and Rich is just standing there. He’s just staring and trying to figure out where to start. He wonders if the SQUIP got rid of the area in his brain that makes decisions. Because he’s staring at this wall of frozen yogurt flavors and everything's just blank. 

“Vanilla is good if you like a lot of toppings but on it’s own it’s kinda boring,” Michael says appearing next to him. "The mango isn’t half bad, especially if you like fruit flavored stuff. Jenna will be pissed that I’m saying this but the coconut here is gross so maybe not that. The b-”

“What are you doing?”

“Helping you pick a flavor,” Michael says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Didn’t look like you were going to do it yourself.”

He continues describing the flavors to him. It feels borderline ridiculous. Like he’s some little kid who doesn’t know what food tastes like. But it helps. Michael is vocalizing the thought process that should be happening inside his head but isn’t. 

“Stop,” he interrupts. “I’ll do strawberry.” 

“Good choice,” Michael replies. Neither one of them moves. “Rich?” Michael says, his voice softer than before. “Do you want to leave? Cause we can. No one will mind.”

‘No, it’s fine. I want to be here.” And he does. It’s just that his brain won’t fucking work and he doesn’t know why. He feels something lightly grab his wrist. Shit, what’s happening? Who’s grabbing him? Why is someone grabbing him? He’s about to pull away when he looks down. 

It’s Michael’s hand. Michael’s hand wrapped lightly around his wrist. It’s barely touching him. He looks up. Michael is staring at him. Michael is giving him a look that says _“I’ll let go if you need me to.”_

Rich doesn’t say anything and Michael gently guides him over. They get yogurt together and he walks with him to the toppings. And he’s with him when they pay the cashier. And they’re together when they follow everyone to the table.

It’s one of those tables that’s up against a wall so half of the seats are a booth and the other half are chairs. Michael sits on the booth side and Rich sits next to him. And they’re sitting together. 

And Rich breathes. 

And Rich forgets all the shit that’s happened in the last few months. In the last few years. Cause right now everyone is talking or laughing and Rich is going to let himself have fun. And it’s not until he gets home that he realizes. 

Michael never let go of his wrist the entire time.


	9. Chapter 9

Rich is cleaning his room in an effort to avoid thinking. Because Michael had been holding his hand. They had been there for almost an hour and Michael had held his hand the whole time. Why would he do that? He wasn’t just being nice because no one holds your hand for nearly an hour just to be nice. If it’s that long it has to mean something. Right? 

They had been holding hands at the end. At least that’s what he thinks. At first, Michael had just grabbed his wrist but at the end they had practically been holding hands. Who had initiated that? Was it Michael or had it been him? Why couldn’t he remember? What sort of person doesn’t remember that?

Had it just been that comfortable? That normal that he didn’t even realize that it never stopped?  
Or maybe he just didn’t want it to stop.

He didn’t like Michael. Not like that at least. He thought he did, back at the hospital. But he had been wrong. It had been a joke. Just because you ask if a guy is single at the same time you figure out you're bisexual that doesn’t mean you like him. It just means…

Shit.

It means nothing. It means you two are friends and that’s it.

Friends that hold hands occasionally. 

It doesn't matter if you like Michael because he doesn’t like you.

_Then why was he holding your hand?_

He was being nice. 

_Right, cause that makes sense._

He noticed I was zoning out! He knows a lot about… I don’t know, emotions and stuff! He probably read it somewhere.

_Read that holding hands can help someone who used to have a supercomputer in their head?_

He really doesn’t want to think about this right now. He goes back to the desk drawer he had been trying to organize. Most of the stuff in it is useless: dried-up pens, old school work from freshman year, and a pair of earbuds that he thought he had lost. As he’s getting ready to throw most of it out when something in the back catches his eye. 

It’s an old sketchbook, one that he had bought near the end of 8th grade. It doesn’t have a lot in it; it’s probably not even half full. Wow, he hasn’t drawn anything in years. Freshmen year kinda sucked and then the SQUIP happened and he just... stopped.

He’s flipping through the old drawings. When he was younger his mom had told him he was really good at drawing. He always thought she was just saying that. Because those are the things moms are supposed to say. Now, looking back, he might have to agree with her. Middle school Rich had been pretty good. Not great, but good. 

He lands on the first blank page. He throws it down on his bed and grabs a pencil from his backpack. He sits down and stares at it. 

It’s hard, being a person. Going through the motions was easy. He could go to class and talk to people but sometimes it just felt so fake. Like he was acting. Because there is more to being human than just going through the motions.

People have likes and dislikes. They have hobbies. It’s emotions and thoughts and actions. And sometimes he just feels so empty. Like he’s a blank slate.He was a computer for two years. The person he was before is gone. He wants to remember who he was but there isn’t anything to remember and it just sucks. 

Being a person takes work and Rich is out of practice. Drawing isn’t going to fix everything. But if it makes him feel better; if it makes him feel like a person again, then he might as well try. 

He doesn’t pay attention to what he’s drawing. He’s worried he'll get in his own head too much if he stops to think about it. Besides, he’s not really trying to be good. He’s just trying to do something. And it’s a distraction from Michael. Because he really doesn’t want to think about that. 

His phone buzzes.

_Brooke has added you to Squip Squad_

**Rich (6:07):** squip squad?

 **Jenna (6:12):** ive been trying to change it 

**Jenna (6:12):** but no one likes any of my names

 **Jeremy (6:14):** sorry jenna but,...

 **Jeremy (6:14):** ur names kinda...suc?

 **Jenna (6:14):** how dare you

 **Rich (6:15):** so squip squad was jeremys idea?

 **Chloe (6:16):** he takes credit for it yes

 **Jeremy (6:16):** its the reason we're friends! the bonding! the experience that brought us together!

 **Christine (6:16):** The trauma! The hardship!

 **Jeremy (6:16):** making jokes about trauma is gen z culture babey

 **Jeremy (6:19):** update! christine is throwing things at me

 **Michael (6:20):** Ignore them

 **Michael (6:20):** Jake called us his squad and Jeremy is just a slut for alliteration

 **Brooke (6:22):** Basically jeremy made a joke a few weeks ago and has been trying to defend it ever since

 **Jake (6:23):** and noone can come up with anything better

 **Rich (6:25):** that makes a lot more sense

Rich turns off his phone and glances toward the sketchbook. He had just been doodling, looking up every few minutes to read the texts coming in on his phone. He let himself zone out and had just drawn whatever had come to mind. 

Rich is staring down at a detailed drawing of a pair of headphones. Big bulky headphones with a long cable. The type of headphones that you wear for the aesthetic as much as for listening to music. 

He gets up and puts the sketchbook back in the desk drawer before collapsing back onto his bed. He feels like he’s in some dumb teen movie, doodling in a notebook during class while staring at your crush.

He’s such a cliche. He liked the first guy who made an effort to be nice to him. It’s not like he could fake it anymore.

Because he knew they were Michael's headphones.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (TW) Rich has a panic attack in this chapter

Rich is exhausted. He spent most of the weekend in his room doing homework. He probably annoyed the group chat by sending numerous pictures of homework problems asking for help. And now he just has five minutes before the last bell of the day rings. Five minutes left in the last class of the day and his teacher is still trying to lecture even though no one is paying attention anymore. 

He grabs his pencil and slowly brings his hand down below the desk so he can drop it in his backpack. As the teacher turns to write something on the board he slips his notebook into his bag. He knows he needs to put effort into school if he’s ever going to learn anything, especially because he missed so much, but he’s tired and the class is nearly over. He’s not going to learn anything in the next five minutes. 

He glances at the clock, actually the next two minutes. And counting. Rich just wants to go home. 

The bell rings. Fucking finally. He grabs his bag and heads out the door. Rich is only in the hallway for a few minutes when he spots Michael approaching him out of the corner of his eye. 

Which is fine. It’s totally cool because he knows nothing is going to happen. Because he and Michael work better as friends so he’s going to keep it that way. 

“Hey Rich.” Michael appears at his side and follows him down the hallway. 

“Hey Mell.” Rich is trying a little too hard to appear casual. “What’s up?”

“I’m bored,” Michael says.

“And?”

“And you should come over.”

“Really? Why should I come over?” Rich is joking but inside his mind is racing. Michael wants to hang out. Probably alone. If he wanted other people there he would have texted the group chat, right? 

“Because you like video games and free food,” Michael jokes back, oblivious to Rich’s nervousness. He and Michael haven’t hung out since the hospital. And that was different because it was a hospital. Not Michael’s actual house.

“Well, you got me there.” Rich shrugs as he follows Michael down the hallway. Friends hang out all the time. This is normal friend territory. The whole point of thinking that “he and Michael work better as friends” is that he gets to do the whole friend thing. So why is he still nervous?

“So you’ll come?” Michael smiles down at him as they reach the school parking lot.

“Obviously,” Rich says. 

They talk about classes as Michael leads him to where his car is parked. Rich climbs into the front seat. Michael throws his backpack in the back seat before he puts the keys into the ignition. He turns toward Rich, “Any requests?”

“Nope, not yet,” Rich laughs lightly.

“You know, one of these days you can actually suggest music, right?” Michael pulls out of the parking lot.

“Why should I? You have such good taste already. I can hardly compete with the music master,” Rich replies. 

“You’re the second person to tell me I have good taste in music.”

“Yeah? Who was the first?”

“Me.”

\---

Michael lives fairly close to the school so it’s not long before they’re pulling up to his driveway. They both exit the car and Rich follows Michael into the living room. 

“Where are you parents?” Rich asks as he looks around the seemingly empty house.

“At work,” Michael says as he opens a door at the end of the hallway. Rich just nods in reply. Michael leads him down a flight of stairs into his basement and flicks the lights on. 

Rich looks around the basement. There’s a T.V with a couple consoles plugged into it. On it’s left is a shelf with a collection of games, but there’s also a number of games laying on the ground at the T.V’s base. Probably the ones Michael plays most often. There’s a small beat-up couch and two bean bags. 

Michael tosses his bag to the side and collapses onto the couch. Rich follows him but is careful to sit on the opposite edge of the couch with deliberate distance between him and Michael. 

‘Any requests for games?” Michael looks over at him.

“No.” Rich brings his knees to his chest and leans into the side of the couch. 

His face falls, “Are you sure? I invited you here Rich. I want you to have fun.”

Rich knows Michael is being nice. And any other time that would be great. But Rich just can’t right now. It feels like the Pinkberry all over again and his brain is shutting down and it sucks. “Really dude, anything’s good.” 

“Really? Cause-”

“Michael…,” Rich pauses, trying to put his thoughts into words that actually make sense. “I...look, making choices and decisions can be hard sometimes for no reason and I just don’t want to think about it right now, ok?” 

Saying that it’s for no reason is kind of a lie. Rich knows it’s because of the SQUIP. Sometimes he knows what to say and sometimes he doesn’t. Same with video games. Rich thought that would be the end of it but Michael isn’t giving up. 

“Well, you can choose here, in a controlled environment. There’s no time limit or pressure or anything. I’ll be here and it can be practice for later.” Michael is off the couch and walking towards the pile of games near the T.V.

This is not how Rich wanted it to go. Michael helping him at Pinkberry was one thing. Rich had needed to make a choice. Here he didn’t have to. He wanted Michael to choose for him. He didn’t want to spend his time with Michael trying to get better or trying to fix himself. He wanted to have fun and forget the fact that there were still things he couldn’t do. He knew Michael was right, he should practice, but that’s not what he wanted.

“Hey,” Rich says, stopping Michael from collecting the possible game options. “Not today, alright? I’d rather not have the stress of doing that right now.” Michael sits against the wall and looks up at him. “Another time, I promise. It was a good idea Michael.” Michael still doesn’t respond. “Please?”

Michael doesn’t say anything but he puts a game into a console and hands Rich a controller before sitting down. He glances over at Rich. 

‘We might not even have to practice your decision making.”

“Oh yeah? Why not?”

“You telling me that you didn’t want to make a decision is still a decision,” Michael smiles.

Rich laughs. It’s not the same and they both know it but that's not the point. “Shut up Mell.”

Michael pretends to be offended as the game boots up, “How dare you. If I shut up you’ll have no funny friends left.”

“Not true.”

“Oh really?”

“I’d have plenty. There’s Jerem-” Michael kicks him lightly in the shin. 

“Oh come on, you think Jeremy is funnier than me?”

“No,” Rich says as Michael hits start on some game he’s never heard of before. “No, I don’t.”

\---

Rch doesn’t know when they stopped playing video games. Maybe an hour or so since they started. But now they’re both sitting in the bean bags watching youtube videos on Michael’s laptop. It’s been a half hour of clicking the weirdest videos that pop up in the recommended feed. 

The video they’re watching now is outlining some wild conspiracy theory that Rich can’t wrap his head around. They’re five minutes into the video and he still has no idea what's happening. But Michael looks absolutely fascinated so Rich is content to just sit back and watch. 

The video stops momentarily and an ad pops up. Rich glances toward the screen and sees that it’s only fifteen seconds. And it’s unskippable. He was going to take this moment to check the notifications on his phone when his eye catches something on the screen. 

And everything just stops.

Michael will tell him later that it was a home insurance commercial. It highlighted the different protections it offered by showing the types of natural disasters that can happen at a moments notice. Like how a commercial for a security company will often show a house being broken into. 

None of that matters now though. What matters now is that Rich is staring at a house that’s on fire. There are firefighters and sirens and ash floating through the air and Rich can’t breathe. 

He can't breathe. He can’t breathe. It hurts and fuck he can’tbreathehecan’tbreathe

Someone is shouting at him. Jake. Jake’s shouting at him to leave but he can’t leave not yet. He can’t leave until it’s out. And it’s not going to get out so he can’t leave. 

Jake is crying and there are people screaming and everything is too loud and too hot and too much. Everyone needs to leave, they aren’t supposed to get hurt. Shit fuck shit he can’t breathe

He feels someone grab his arm and fuck that can not be happening right now. He swings wildly with his free hand while he attempts to pull his other hand out. His free hand connects with somebody and he feels them back away for the moment. 

He stumbles off the bean bag, Jake doesn't own a beanbag chair, how did he get on this chair, and feels himself hit the ground. He backs up until he hits a wall. He rests his back against the wall and it’s cold.

He blinks and tries desperately to slow his breathing. He’s not at Jake’s house. He’s...he’s somewhere. 

“-ear me? Rich, come on man, I’m gonna need an answer. You don’t have to talk, you can just nod or something.”

Michael is a few feet ahead of him, kneeling on the ground with his hands held cautiously in front of him. Right, he was at Michael’s house. Michael isn’t wearing his headphones. Wasn’t he wearing them before? Rich can’t remember. Isn’t he always wearing them? Why isn’t he now?

“Rich, can you look at me? Do you want me to go get my mom?”

No. Michael’s mom can’t know. She’ll be mad at him, she won’t let him come over. Fuck, what if she tells his dad? 

“No, no please, you don’t have to. You don’t have to tell her. I’m sorry, ok? I’m sorry. Please don-”

“Okay, okay I won’t. Please don’t apologize Rich, you didn’t do anything. Just breathe.”

Rich is trying but the air keeps getting caught in his throat. His chest is too tight and he still can't breathe properly. 

“Rich, can I get closer? Is that okay?”

Rich nods. Michael crawls until he is sitting right in front of him. “We’re going to breathe together, alright? You and me.”

And they do. Michael comforts him until he can breathe again. Rich isn’t good yet. His head is pounding and he can feel his hands shaking but he can breathe so he’s going to consider that a win. 

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be.” 

Rich nods and waits a minute. “I’m sorry,” slips out again. 

“It’s fine Rich,” Michael replies. “Don’t feel pressured to talk if you don’t want to.”

It’s quiet for a few minutes. Michael speaks up again, “Do you.... do you want a hug or anything? Can I touch you right now?”

Those are too entirely different questions. Because Rich does a hug. He really, really wants Michael to hug him. But the thought of anybody touching him right now makes him feel like he might start hyperventilating again. He can’t handle that right now. He slowly shakes his head no. 

“That’s alright. Do you want me to get you some water?”

Water is something Rich can do. He nods and sees Michael get up and walk toward the stairs. Rich closes his eyes and leans his head up against the wall. A few minutes later, he hears Michael enter the basement. 

“Rich? Do you think it would be more comfortable by the couch?”

He really doesn’t want to get up right now. The ideal scenario would be to fade into this wall and never talk to anybody again but that unfortunately is not an option. He nods reluctantly and begins to get up. Michael goes to put the glass of water on a side table near the couch.

While he’s standing up he catches a quick glimpse at the burns on his arms and almost throws up. He just had to be wearing short sleeves at this moment didn’t he?

“Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know where my hoodie is?”

Michael turns to see Rich frozen in place staring at his arms and seems to put the pieces together. He looks quickly around the room before approaching Rich. 

“I think it’s still in my car. Here, you can use this.” Michael rips off his hoodie and hands it to Rich. 

The red one. The one with all the patches. The Michael Mell hoodie. Rich is too stunned to refuse. He grabs the hoodie and pulls it over his head. 

They both walk over to the couch. Rich sits where he had been before, which is conveniently next to the table with the glass of water. He picks it up but doesn’t drink it. 

Michael also takes his original spot on the couch and Rich is made aware of the distance between them. It’s only a foot or two but it seems like so much longer. This intentional distance they keep putting between themselves, albeit for different reasons. 

He hates it. He hates it so much. He curls into the couch. He doesn’t know where they’re supposed to go from here. He kinda wants to play it off, just ignore that it ever happened. But he doesn’t think that he has the energy to do that. And he has a feeling that Michael isn’t going to let him. 

Michael is sitting cross legged on the other side, facing toward Rich. He's fidgeting with his hands in his lap, like he’s waiting for Rich to make the first move. Neither of them talk for at least five minutes. Every bone in Rich’s body is telling him that Michael is mad at him even though he knows that’s not true. He should leave. He should just get up and never bother Michael again. 

He could try apologizing again but Michael would just tell him he had nothing to be sorry for. Which is a lie but whatever. 

“Rich we should talk abo-”

“No.”

“Come on, you know that-”

“What do you want me to say? I saw a fire and freaked out. End of story.” Rich looks down and studies the patches on Michael’s hoodie. He hears Michael sigh. 

“Talking helps. It’s good to get things out in the open and work at fixing it.”

Rich would rather not do any of that. He’s happy to continue looking at the patches on the hoodie. Most of them are bands that he only recognizes because Michael plays them so much. Another is a flag but Rich doesn’t know what country it’s for. 

Michael hasn’t said anything else. Rich finally looks up and gets the impression that he isn’t going to let this go. 

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, okay?” He goes back down to looking at the hoodies sleeve. “I’m scared that if I talk about it right now, while I’m still upset, I’ll just get more anxious and it’ll happen again. On a different day, when I’m more calm, we can talk all about my feelings or whatever. I promise.”

Michael stares at him for a minute before replying, “Are you lying?”

“About what?”

“Will you actually talk about it on a different day? Or will you keep putting it off until it’s too much for you to handle?”

He considers it for a moment. Ignoring his problems does seem like something he would do. He bought a computer for his head because he couldn’t solve his own problems. He shrugs, “I don’t want to be lying.”

Michael runs his hand through his hair and lets out a long slow breath. “Okay.” He glances toward Rich. “What do you wanna do now?”

He doesn’t know if he wants to do anything. He definitely doesn’t want to leave. “Can I just watch you play video games? I don’t really want to think right now.”

Michael gives him a small smile, “Yeah, we can do that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unrelated to this chapter but glad to see that people liked Rich drawing last chapter.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (TW) Vague mentions to Rich's dad.

Rich had avoided Michael at school today. Okay, maybe not completely avoided. They talked at lunch and in the hallways. But always in a group. Because talking to Michael alone meant talking about what happened. Which was something Rich didn’t want to do. 

Because it will be uncomfortable. It’ll be awkward. Having a scheduled talk about his emotions and hardships did not seem like it would be a fun time.

Rich throws his backpack against the wall and collapses onto his bed. He kinda regrets not talking to Michael after school today. Turns out bottling up your feelings and pretending everything’s okay when it’s not, doesn’t feel great either. 

Maybe he was destined to feel bad all the time. He groans and flips over so he’s facing the ceiling. Why did everything have to be so _hard?_ Why couldn’t he just _know_ how to do things?

Stop. He sounds like he did freshman year. He’s not supposed to think like that anymore. 

Rich gets the idea that sitting in his room, alone with his thoughts for a few hours, may not be the best plan of action. He pulls his phone out and scrolls through the list of contacts. 

Jeremy? No. He’d be fun to hang out with but he’s too close to Michael. What if Michael told Jeremy about yesterday and then Jeremy tries to get him to talk? Or if Jeremy tells Michael that they’re hanging out and Michael tries to get Jeremy to check in on him?

Brooke? Rich likes Brooke but has no idea what they would even do if they hung out after school. 

His finger hovers over Jake’s name. If he’s honest, he misses hanging out with Jake. He misses his best friend. Well, his old best friend. After the SQUIP they are… they’re people that know each other. 

**Rich (3:30):** hey dude u busy rn?

Rich isn’t going to stare at his phone until Jake texts him back. He throws the phone on the side of the bed and pulls out the sketchbook from the desk drawer. Thanks to Christine, he’s caught up on homework which means he has some free time. 

He draws for a while, long enough to forget that he was waiting for Jake to text back in the first place. He only stops when he hears his phone buzz.

**Jake (4:12):** no why

**Rich (4:13):** can I come over?

Rich looks down at the text before adding on. 

**Rich (4:13):** to hang out

He knows the hanging out can be implied from the first text but he doesn’t want Jake to worry. The SQUIP had him lie about a lot of things but not all of them. Jake knows about his dad. At least, he knows enough. And Rich knows there have been a few times when he went to Jake’s house for reasons other than hanging out. 

He usually just showed up instead of texting, but still. 

**Jake (4:14):** yeah do you want me to pick you up

**Rich (4:14):** if u can

**Jake (4:15):** see you in 10

\---

Rich is leaning against a street light on the corner of his block. Jake never picked him up directly from his house. The SQUIP had been against it. Claimed it was easier that way. That it meant his dad would ask less questions. 

He shouldn't have listened to _everything_ the SQUIP had to say but when it came to his dad…. Well, Rich was inclined to take it’s advice. 

He sees Jake’s car pull up to the corner. Rich gets in the front and Jake drives off. He glances over at Rich. 

“You’re cool if we just go to my house, right?”

“Yeah.” 

Jake reaches the first intersection and flips his turn signal on. Which is weird because he usually goes straight.

Oh. Of course it’s a different route. Rich burned down his old house. Thank goodness he hadn’t mentioned it out loud. That would have been awkward.

The car is silent except for a song playing softly on the radio. Everything feels off. A song is playing but it’s coming from the radio, not Michael’s phone. They’re hanging out but it feels different than before. Jake’s hands are gripped tight around the steering wheel. Rich wonders if he feels the tension too. 

Jake glances over at him, “Sorry I didn’t respond earlier.”

“It’s chill dude.” Rich is staring down at his feet. 

“There was a meeting for Model UN.” 

Rich figured it was something like that. Jake always liked to be involved in a way he never understood. But it also gives them something to talk about during the drive. “Oh yeah? How was that?”

Jake begins to talk about the meeting in detail as Rich stares out the window. He feels that this conversation would make more sense if he had any idea how Model UN worked. It doesn’t help that most of the names Jake is mentioning are ones he doesn’t recognize. It reminds him why Jake is popular. He really can make friends with anybody. 

Rich wonders if he would have been friends with him freshman year. If they had been in the same club would Jake have tried? Would he have even tried to talk to Jake?

Jake is talking about something Madeline said as they pull into the driveway. Were they dating? He remembers Jake flirting with her. He tries to remember if they met in Model UN or somewhere else. He doesn’t know how Jake keeps track of all the people he knows.

Rich hears the car door slam and realizes that Jake is already walking toward the house. He gets out and has to jog a little to catch up with him. He reaches the front porch as Jake opens up the door and then turns to wait for him. 

Jake yells out, “I’m back,” as they both enter the house, which is a new experience. Before, Jake never had anyone to come back to. 

A man approaches from what Rich thinks is the kitchen and begins to walk toward them. He’s tall, maybe an inch taller than Jake, which is saying something. Rich feels his shoulders stiffen.

“You must be Rich,” the man says once he gets closer. “Jake has mentioned you before.”

Rich nods and is about to say something when he sees the man, who is probably Jake’s uncle, move his hand. It moves fast in his direction and he stumbles backward a step before realizing he is up against a wall and therefore has nowhere to go. 

He looks down. It’s a handshake. He swallows before reaching out his own hand, “It’s, um, good to meet you sir.”

Jake’s uncle isn’t looking at him. He’s eyes are too focused on Rich’s wrist. The spot where his hoodie has ridden up and some of his scars are showing. Rich draws his hand back and shoves it deeply into his pocket. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Rich.” They both stare at each other uncomfortably. Rich isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do next. 

“We’re going to go, alright?” Jake nods his head awkwardly in the direction of the stairs.

His uncle claps his hands together, “Of course, I’ll leave you to it.” He walks back toward the kitchen.

Rich waits until Jake’s uncle leaves the room completely. Jake is already on the first step of the stairs. 

“Dude, you coming or what?”

He turns and follows Jake up to his room.

Rich looks around, noting the small changes from Jake’s old room. A bit smaller, the only furniture is a dresser and a bed. Less posters. The only thing really reminiscent from before is a small T.V with a Xbox plugged into it. 

Jake turns on the Xbox and hands Rich a controller. He turns on a shooting game that Rich can’t remember the name of. This should feel familiar. They’ve done this exact thing too many times to count but it just feels off. Because Rich hasn’t really done this. At least not by himself. 

The game starts and they play silently. Rich feels like he should start a conversation. He asked to come over so he should talk first, right? 

“So, how is everything? You know with…” Rich hadn’t thought this through. How is he supposed to have this conversation when everything is his fault? “With moving?”

Jake keeps his eyes on the screen, “It's been chill.”

He’s tempted to leave it at that. Mainly because he'll feel like a hypocrite. He refused to talk about his feelings with Michael but now he’s going to make Jake talk about his? It doesn’t seem fair. He also doesn’t want to bring back unpleasant memories for either of them.

But he should. Jake is trying hard to stay friends with him. He should put in the same effort. Besides, while Jake may not know the new Rich, Rich still knows Jake a little too well. 

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Do what?” Jake’s eyes flicker toward him before settling back on the game.

He shrugs, “Be fine with everything. Be the happy, cool dude all the time. You’re allowed to be,” Rich lets out a slow breath, “I don’t know, upset?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I am fine.”

Rich knows that's a lie. But Jake hasn’t shut down the conversation yet. So he tries a different tactic. 

“It must be weird, huh? Having adults in the house all the time?”

Jake doesn’t reply for a minute and Rich is preparing to apologize.

“I had to ask,” Jake says.

Rich is pulled out of his thoughts as he tries to understand what he means. “What?”

‘If you could come over. I was halfway out the door before I realized that I had to let people know what I was doing. I forgot that was even a thing I had to do.” Jake throws a grenade in the game.

“Shit, man. That must be hard.” 

“And grocery shopping. I keep feeling like I should go buy groceries before I remember that I don’t do that anymore. I offered but Lindsey keeps saying its ‘not my responsibility anymore.’’

He figures Lindsey is the name of Jake’s aunt and files it away. “Well, you can always help me buy groceries,” Rich jokes.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” 

They both go back to playing the game for a minute. Rich is trying to open a box but he can’t remember the button and keeps shooting it. 

“How’s you dad?” Jake asks, breaking the silence.

“The same.” Rich finally opens the box but it’s empty, which is just his luck.

“You can still, you know,” Jake pauses the game and looks over at him, “if you need to. No matter what. I’ll make them let you stay if you need to.”

“It’s their house Jake,” Rich sighs, “If they don’t want me here that’s their choice to make.”

“Fuck that. I’d rather sneak you in here then have you stay there when you shouldn’t. I’ll fight them if I have to.”

Rich feels his grip tighten on his controller. “Don’t.”

“Rich, I-”

“I don’t want you getting in trouble because of me.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s what you said.”

“Bad choice of words. I’m sorry.” Jake picks up the controller and presses play. “Offer still stands though.”

“Okay,” He turns back to the game. “Speaking of bad parents, have yours said anything? Like, at all?”

Jake laughs even though it’s not funny, “Nope. I don’t even know where they are.”

Rich is silent. What do you say to a guy whose parents just left?

“I mean, the house burning down made the news. They should have seen that.” Jake shakes his head, as if in disbelief. “Actually, no. They probably didn’t.” His character dies and he sets down the controller. 

“When I was little they were always working. And then they said they were working more and more often. Until they just left.” Jake leans back until he’s lying completely on the bed. “In the early days of high school we still talked. I would get notes in the mailbox or calls from weird numbers. But then those stopped too. Until it was just the money.”

Rich moves so he is lying down next to Jake. He’s kinda at a loss for words. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“Not yours either.”

“I just… the money meant they cared right? Because they could’ve left me with nothing. But when I needed it I would always get money for food or bills. So they must have cared enough to keep me alive.”

“Yeah,” Rich says, thinking that ‘kept alive’ shouldn’t be where the bar is for parents. 

Jake draws his hands over his face and slowly sits up. “Sorry for venting.”

“It’s fine dude.” They both grab their controllers and wait for the game to load. 

“You know,’ Jake starts, “I thought this was going to be awkward.”

“Yeah? How come?” Rich thinks he knows why but he wants to see what Jake says. 

He sighs, “Because you’ve been different. It feels like every time I see you I’m reminded that I wasn’t really friends with you. I was friends with that thing.”

This is what he was afraid of. Their friendship had been fake. They had known each other over a year but were still strangers. 

“Must be hard. Seeing me and missing it.”

Jake’s face scrunches up, like whatever he’s thinking is actually causing him pain. “Sometimes,” he admits. “But it’s weird. I had one for like an hour and it was horrible. And sometimes I see this look on Jeremy’s face and…” he trails off. “You had it the longest. How can I miss something when I know what was going on underneath?”

Rich feels this sudden urge to defend himself. Why he needed to take it. Why he let it do the things it did. Because it hadn’t been all bad. 

He hates even thinking about it. But it’s true. He had been confident. He had friends and he had been happy. Sure, there had been some really bad parts. But Rich would be lying if he said he didn’t miss it. Not the bad parts. Just, not having to think about life. 

He feels nauseous. He knows that’s not what Jake wants to hear. He clears his throat, “Well, thanks for still talking to me. And for pulling me out of that house. And for everything really.”

Jake smiles, for the first time since Rich has been over. “Don’t mention it man.”

They go back to playing in silence. Which is different. Because when Rich had the SQUIP they would talk while playing. 

Rich shoots a guy on the other team and tries to think back. What had they even talked about? It had almost always been the SQUIP talking when he hung out with Jake. 

Girls? Yeah, he thinks they talked about girls sometimes. He remembers Jake talking about Chloe or Madeline or somebody. And he doesn’t have any other ideas for conversation. 

“I think I like Michael,” he says. “By the way, I’m bi. No pun intended.”

“Cool,” Jake replies. “I’m pan probably.”

“Really?” Rich asks, surprised. “Nice.”

“So, Michael?”

“Yeah, Michael,” Rich laughs a little as they continue talking. 

For a moment, it felt normal. Like before. Like he had his friend back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Jake's parent are canonically criminals on the run and I feel like we don't talk about that enough so heres that
> 
> 2\. This fic is not Richjake but... yall can have pan Jake anyway.


	12. Chapter 12

**Rich (2:57):** can u drive me to school tomorrow?

 **Rich (2:57):** only if u want to

 **Rich (2:58):** but like i want to talk. I dont want to spend another day where its awkward again

 **Rich (3:01):** nvm we can just find each other before school u dont have to drive me

 **Michael (3:05):** Either works. I can drive you dont worry.

 **Rich (3:05):** cool thx

 **Michael (3:06):** But also… why are you awake at 3 in the morning?

 **Rich (3:07):** y r u 

**Michael (3:07):** You got me there

\---

 **Michael (6:59):** Where do you live?

 **Rich (7:01):** u kno that park thats like 15 mins from the school?

 **Rich (7:01):** u can pick me up there

He sees Michael start typing, stop, and start again, before finally responding. 

**Michael (7:04):** Ok

 **Michael (7:04):** Tell me when you want me to come

\---

He sees Michael’s car pull up and he begins walking toward it. He really doesn’t want him asking questions. He can feel his hands shaking in the pocket of his sweatshirt.

Jake didn’t ask questions. But Jake had been friends with SQUIPed Rich, who had been kinda a dick. Rich wouldn’t have asked himself any hard hitting questions either. 

He opens the door of the car and climbs in. Michael glances over at him as he puts on his seatbelt. 

“Any requests?” 

He really loves that phrase. Because now it’s more than asking for music. It’s their thing. It’s awkward small talk and greetings. It’s ‘Hi, how are you? I’m good, how are you?’ all rolled into two words. Today it means ‘I’m not going to ask why you had me pick you up at the park and not at your house’.

Rich shakes his head as Michael starts driving. He takes a moment to collect his thoughts and wishes he planned this out before he got in the car. He appreciates Michael being quiet. 

“First off, I’m sorry. Again.”

“You have nothing to apolog-”

“Don’t,” Rich interrupts. “Just let me say this and then we can talk, ok?”

Michael’s jaw clenches but he nods. Rich takes a deep breath.

“Talking about this kind of shit is hard. And you caught me at a bad place a couple of days ago. So, I’m sorry I pushed you away.” Rich glances over at Michael whose eyes are still focused on the road.

He continues, “Fire still freaks me out. Or anything related to it. Sometimes I’ll hear a siren outside my window and freeze up until it passes. That, on top of the SQUIP stuff, hasn’t been great. But I’m working on it so that’s the end of it.”

Michael stops at a stop sign and looks over at Rich. “How are you working on it?”

“What?”

Michael turns in his chair slightly. “You just said you were working at it. How?”

He’s at a loss for words. He had hoped that just admitting the fact that he was struggling would be good enough. “I, uh, draw sometimes when I’m stressed?” It comes out unsure, more like a question than a statement. 

“And?”

“And what?” He really doesn’t know where Michael is going with this. 

Michael draws his hands over his face and lets out a long breath. “Look, it’s great that you have something that calms you down when you’re stressed. Okay? It really is.” He looks back at Rich, “But you should probably have more than that. What would have happened if I wasn’t there the other day?”

Rich knows what would have happened. He probably would have spent a long time hyperventilating and then cried for a while before falling asleep. But he’s not going to tell Michael that. “I would have calmed down eventually.”

“‘Eventually’ is like, not the goal here,” Michael says exasperated. “There are breathing exercises or grounding things you can do. It can get better.” He sighs. “And you need to talk to other people about this. Anyone in the group would be willing to-”

“Hey! I talk to you!” 

“Barely,” Michael replies, which is totally true but Rich does not really like the direction this conversation is having so he attempts to turn it around. 

“Yesterday, I felt like crap and I went to Jake’s house. So there.”

“To talk about why you felt bad?” 

“Well, mainly to hang out. But we talked about feelings too.”

“Your feelings?”

“I mean..” He falters for a moment. _Yeah,_ he thinks. _My feelings for you._ But that's not what this conversation is about. “Jake needed to talk about stuff. Doesn’t he get to talk about how he’s feeling too?” He throws his hands in the air slightly as if he won this argument.

Michael leans back into his chair. “Friendship goes two ways. You and Jake are both allowed to be open with each other.”

“So that applies to us too?” Rich raises his voice slightly, which he hates but doesn't make the effort to change. “Every time we hang out we always end up talking about my shit. It’s always you helping me. That’s not fair for you.”

“That's not what I meant and you know it. I know you’d be there for me if I needed it. But we’re talking about you. Sometimes I think you forget that it’s okay to be open. I think you hold back a lot of stuff and that’s not-”

“Didn’t realize you were the Rich Goranski expert. Sorry I had a computer take over my identity and you know more about me then I do.”

“I’m not tryi-”

“Sorry I’m not acting how you think I should. Maybe, I want to act the way I want for the first time in two years.”

“Hey-”

“Whatever.” He slumps down in his seat. “We’ve been at this stop sign for a while. We should go.”

He can practically feel Michael looking at him. “There aren’t any other cars at this intersection. It’s a side street; it’s not like we’re holding anyone up.”

“I don’t want to be late for school.”

He hears Michael sigh as the car starts up again. They don’t talk the rest of the car ride. When they get to school he jumps out of the car and heads to his first class without saying a word. 

Every step he takes pounds in his head. 

You fucked that up. You fucked that up. _You fucked that up._

How does he keep messing up this badly? Every time he thinks that he’s getting better he goes in the complete wrong direction. He couldn't choose a stupid frozen yogurt flavor or a video game. Every time someone tries to talk about his feelings he just yells at them. He has no idea why anyone keeps talking to him. He just wants everything to be normal.

What’s worse is that he knows Michael’s right. He should be talking to people about this. He should be open; he should be trying harder. But that doesn’t make it any easier. 

So Rich does what he’s had to do many times before. He apologizes.

 **Rich (7:40):** Im sorry

 **Rich (7:40):** You were right I just freaked out

 **Rich (7:40):** again

 **Rich (7:41):** Sorry

 **Michael (8:27):** Meet me at the back door during lunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Im,,,,sorry but yall knew this was angst


	13. Chapter 13

Rich walks toward the back of the school not really knowing what to expect. He sees Michael leaning up against the door with his headphones on. He approaches slowly. 

“Hey.” 

Michael sighs and moves his headphones so they’re around his neck. He doesn’t respond. He studies Rich momentarily before nodding his head toward the door.

“Come on.” With that, Michael heads the door. Rich has to jog a little to catch up to him. 

“Where are we going?”

Michael glances down at him, “My car.”

He had a feeling that he isn’t going to get a better answer then that so he follows Michael silently. They both enter the car. Rich notices that it smells strongly of weed, which is odd because it hadn’t this morning. 

When they pull out of the parking lot Michael breaks his silence. “I’ll start, okay?”

Rich nods. 

“I admit I might have been pushing a little too hard,” he begins. “I can give advice but I can’t force you to solve your problems. And I especially can’t make you solve your problems my way.” 

“But I want to work with you Rich. I want to help, we all do. But sometimes it feels like you don’t want to work with us.”

Rich opens his mouth to argue but Michael continues talking. 

“I know you want to get better. But it hurts. I see you struggling and it hurts to see that because we care about you. I care about you.” He takes a shaky breath. “So, I try really hard to help and maybe forget to listen to you. But I want you to be happy Rich.”

“But you do help.” Rich says. “It’s just really hard sometimes. And I feel bad whenever I can't do something you want me to do. It feels like you think I’m not trying.

“I’m sorry. I just see you upset and then I get upset on your behalf. I’m not frustrated at you. I’m just mad at the world and all the shit that’s happened.” 

“Huh,” Rich is taken aback. “I never thought about it that way. I always thought I was disappointing you by not being able to have emotional discussions or pick a video game.”

“I'm never going to be mad at you for something like that. I know you’re trying really hard.”

He thinks for a moment. “I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I just told you that’s what I was feeling earlier.”

“Wow, look at that. You’re learning.” Michael smiles.

“Oh shut up.” Rich replies. “Look I’m sorry. Yelling at you and being mean is dumb and unproductive. I am going to try to talk more even though it might be hard sometimes.”

“I’m sorry too. It’s dumb and unproductive to believe that everything is going to be easy to fix. I’m going to be more understanding that things are going to be hard.”

“Thanks.”

“Fair warning, that doesn’t mean I’m going to ignore stuff. Things only get easier with practice. That whole ‘being open with you feelings thing’ isn’t going away.”

“I know.” Rich looks out the window. He hasn’t been paying attention to where they were going but Michael has pulled into a parking lot somewhere. “Where are we exactly?”

“7/11” Michael says as he turns off the car. “Come on let’s go. We’re getting slushies.”

He follows him outside, “I don’t have any money though.”

“I’m paying for you.” Michael pushes open the door and walks inside the store. 

Rich tries hard to ignore the fact that buying someone food sounds a lot like a date. “What would you have done if we got to 7/11 and still hadn’t worked it out?”

“I would have bought one for myself and made you watch me drink it.” He walks up to the counter and turns back toward Rich. “Do you want to choose or should I or…?”

“I never had one before. Surprise me.” 

A few minutes later, slushies in hand, the boys continue to the car.

“If we head back now we can still see everyone at lunch today.” Michael says as he gets in the car. “Or we can finish our drinks here and then be back in time for class.”

He takes a sip of his slushie as he considers it. “We can, uh, stay here. If you want.”

“Cool,” he says. Then, a second later, he shoves his slushie in Rich’s hands. “Try this one too. So you can compare flavors. Next time you can choose whichever you liked better or a different one all together.” He pauses and looks down. “You know, if you want to try doing that.”

“I do.” He takes a sip of Michael’s and hands it back. “They’re both good. I’ll have to think about it. For next time.” 

Michael nods as he takes it back. He holds the slushie with one hand and scrolls through his phone with the other. Every few seconds a song will play, he’ll consider it, then shake his head slightly and move on. 

Rich pulls out his own phone and sees that he has a text from Jake. 

**Jake (1:00):** where are you

 **Rich (1:08):** 7/11

 **Jake (1:08):** really

 **Jake (1:08):** thats so interesting because i happen to know another boy who loves 7/11

 **Jake (1:09):** who happens to also not be here at lunch

 **Rich (1:09):** shut up its not like that

 **Rich (1:10):** we’re just hanging out

 **Jake (1:10):** yeah sure

 **Rich (1:11):** we are!!!

He puts his phone down and turns to look at Michael. He has his eyes closed as he nods his head slightly to whatever song is playing. Apparently, this one meets his standards because he lets it play. 

“Do you like this one?”

“I like all of them.”

Michael smiles and rolls his eyes slightly. “Okay, but this one in particular.”

“Well start it from the beginning again so I can hear the whole thing.”

Michael restarts the song. With a cold slushie in one hand, his other hand resting on the console in the middle of both of them, Rich listens. He likes the song. Of course he likes the song. Because Michael likes the song.

So he spends the next few minutes trying to figure out why Michael enjoys it. The songs Michael loves are always his favorites. Mainly because he loves to watch Michael listen.

He watches him sing lyrics under his breath or tap out beats with the tips of his fingers. Even when he’s doing something else, Michael never treats the music like it’s just in the background. Rich watches as Michael leans slightly against the window, humming along to various riffs in the music.

The song ends and Rich smiles. “I liked the guitar in that one.” Which is true. But he also has a feeling that guitar was Michael's favorite part as well.

The look on his face tells Rich that he got it right. “I like that part too.” Michael says before launching into a discussion about the guitar player. In the middle of his rambling he stopped and looked over at Rich, “and then he…. What?”

Rich suddenly realized he had been staring and looked away. “Nothing. I just wish it could always be like this.”

“Like what?” asks Michael who rests his hand on the space in between their seats.

Right next to Rich’s free hand. They’re only an inch apart. Stop. You’re not going to date him so it doesn’t matter how close your hands are. Get over it. 

“Um, just easy, I guess? Not having to worry about freaking out or messing it all up.”

“You’ll get there. We just have to keep working at it.” Michael shifts and their pinkies are touching. 

Maybe they’ll hold hands, like at Pinkberry. _No, this is different,_ he thinks. _You were having a panic attack or something at Pinkberry. Michael holding your hand was only because he was helping you. It was a platonic hand hold because of the situation._

“But what if I don’t? I can say that I want to get better and I’ll be open but what if I’m not? What if I just go back to yelling and hiding and messing up?”

Michael gives him a sad smile, “That’s kinda up to you Rich. People will be there to remind you or help you but at the end of the day you have to help yourself too.”

Rich doesn’t particularly like that answer. He feels this pit in the bottom of his stomach that tells him he can’t. He’s not going to be able to do those things. He doesn’t know if he can trust himself to do that. 

Michael clears his throat. “We should probably head back to school.”

Rich, lost in thought, nods. Michael pulls his hand back and moves to start the car. 

He watches Michael pull his hand back and has a realization. Michael isn’t going to be able to fix everything. He can't always be there. ~~Not like the SQUIP had.~~ As much as Michael and the others help, there is so stuff he’s going to have to figure out by himself. Decisions he’s going to have to make for himself.

And even though he’s sitting in the car with Michael next to him, Rich suddenly feels incredibly alone.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple scenes from school

Rich is outside about to start his walk home when he is ambushed by Christine. By ambushed, he means that she saw him across the parking lot, ran, and jumped right in front of him. 

“Hey Rich!” She smiles widely. “How are you doing?”

“Uh, fine I guess? How are you?” 

“I’m great! Do you mind if I walk with you?” 

“Sure.” He starts walking. He and Christine don't really hang out alone but she's fun to be around.

“Soooo,” she starts, dragging the word out while swinging her arms slightly. “Musical starts tomorrow.”

Rich ponders this for a moment, trying to figure out what that statement has to do with him. He comes up with nothing and figures it’s just an icebreaker. 

“Yeah? Are you in it?” 

“Yup.” she replies, popping the ‘p’. “But that’s not what we’re talking about. Although we could! One of the songs I sing is the perfect opportunity to showcase-”

“Chris?” He interrupts because he knows she could talk about acting all day if given the chance. Usually he would listen but she had just said she had planned to talk about something else. “What did you mean to tell me?”

“Oh yeah! I was wondering if you wanted to help out, like in the tech crew?” 

Rich is so surprised that he stops walking. “What?”

“You know like building the set, operating the lights, and all that stuff.” She also stops walking and turns so she’s facing him.

“No, I know what tech crew is. Why are you asking me?” 

“A lot of reasons!” She begins to count the off on her fingers, “Me, Jeremy, Brooke, and Jenna are in the musical so it would be fun for you to be there. We need more people because basically no one joined. And I think you would be really good at it!”

“Why would I be good at it?” 

“Cause you’re super good at art and stuff. We mainly need people to help paint set pieces but there are other things you can do too. I just always see you drawing at lunch so I figured you might be into it.”

He shuffles on his feet and sticks his hands in his hoodie pocket. “I'm not ‘super good’ at art, alright? I just doodle sometimes. Besides, painting is a lot different to drawing.”

Christine is obviously not going to go down without a fight. “Well, you don’t have to paint if you don’t want to. And, by the way, you are super good at art. I’ve seen the stuff on the corners of your homework and stuff. It’s really good.”

He yields and lets himself take the compliment, even if he doesn’t quite believe it. “Thanks.”

She raises her eyebrows at him, “So? Do you want to do it?”

Rich tries to come up with a reason to say no and finds none. It might be interesting, he has friends in the cast, and it gives him something to do instead of going straight home. He shrugs “I guess I could try it out. But if I hate it then I’m going to leave.”

“Deal! Meet me in the theater tomorrow and I’ll show you around!” She bounces in place and then turns to leave. “I live that way,” she points behind Rich, “so I’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiles again before waving goodbye and walking off.

Rich smiles to himself as he continues home. 

\---

Rich is in class but not really paying attention. That is until someone is suddenly sitting on his desk. He looks up and makes eye contact with Chloe. She’s sitting, with one leg crossed over the other and a pencil in her hand. 

“Uh, hi?” he starts because he has no idea what's happening. 

Chloe looks vaguely annoyed, but that’s kinda her default. “Yeah, hi. Are you good?”

Now he really doesn’t know what's happening. “What?”

“We’re doing a lab?” She points her pencil toward the back of the room by the lab tables. Sure enough, the rest of the class is back there with only Rich and Chloe still at the desks. “Or were you just planning on staring off into the distance all day?”

“Oh, yeah. Um, thanks?” He gets up and heads to the one empty lab table. This teacher doesn’t tend to pay attention much so he figures he can get away with working alone. 

Then Chloe sits down across from him. She slides a paper over. “You forgot the lab.”

He laughs awkwardly and grabs the sheet. “Thanks. Again.”

Chloe doesn’t leave. She begins setting up the lab equipment silently. 

“What are you doing?” he asks. 

She looks at him like he’s an idiot. “The lab? Or did you forget that we’re in school right now?”

“No,”he sighs. “Why are you doing it with me? You know, like, everyone in this class. You should do it with someone who knows what they’re doing.” 

Chloe doesn’t reply to that. She scans the sheet for a moment and looks up. “Do you know how to calculate velocity?”

“No,” he says, a little annoyed. “That’s what I was telling you. You shouldn’t fail just because you’re trying to be nice to me or whatever you’re doing.”

She rolls her eyes and walks over to his side of the table. She places their labs side by side and points to an equation she’s written. “That’s for velocity,” she starts, “You just need the time and distance.” She points to a yardstick and a stopwatch on the table. “Let’s go.”

Rich does as directed and let’s Chloe lead him through the lab. He still doesn’t know the point of the experiment but at least he’s going through the motions.

They collect the data and sit down for the rest of the lab. Which is mainly just math and answering questions. But Chloe leads him through that too, explaining which numbers to use where and why.

“When did you get good at physics?”

“I didn’t.” She looks up from her phone, “I’m better at chemistry.”

He looks around the room. They were the first one to finish. There are groups of three or four that are still working but Chloe doing this lab practically by herself had finished first. And she had to take the time to explain everything to him. 

“Okay, then when did you get good at science?”

She sighs and puts down her phone. “I don’t know. Middle school, I guess.” She leans forward, putting her elbows on the table.

“Wow,” he laughs. “Who would have guessed? Chloe Valentine: a secret nerd.”

“I’m not a nerd and it’s not a secret.”

He holds his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, my bad. The girl who happens to be a science genius isn’t actually a huge nerd.”

She scoffs, “I’m not a genius either. I study and stuff. It just happens to be my best subject.”

“The fact that you study doesn’t make you less smart. You have to learn things to be good at them. No one is born just knowing how to calculate the velocity of an object.”

Chloe says nothing, just looks at him. Her gaze softens momentarily but she grabs her phone and starts scrolling again. 

Rich wonders if that’s the first time anyone has ever called her smart. If it’s the first time in a while that anyone has described Chloe Valentine as something other than pretty and kind of a bitch. 

He looks over at her, “Why did you help me today? Really?”

She shrugs but doesn’t look up at him. “We’re friends.”

“Really?”

“Rich, we eat at the same lunch table. We hang out like every week.”

 _Both of those are in a group_ , he thinks. He had never considered the possibility that Chloe was actually a friend of his. She finally glances up from her phone. 

“What? Is it so hard to believe that I could be nice?”

“No,” he says, and he means it. “No, Chloe. You are nice.”

The bell rings and they break eye contact. By the time Rich has grabbed his bag to leave, Chloe is already out the door.

\---

Okay. Christine wins.

Being in tech is actually kinda cool. Rich might even go as far to say he likes it. 

It’s a lot of work. The only people in it right now are him and a couple of freshmen. One of them might be a sophomore but Rich isn’t sure. They’re all cool though. But things would probably go faster if there were more of them.

It feels good to work on something. To have work to do and actually do it. The teacher running it said that he wants to teach him how the lighting system works so he can run it during the musical. It feels good to be trusted. To have a teacher not look at him like he’s going to burn down the school.

Right now they're just painting some of the set pieces. Which is something he really enjoys. It’s relaxing to just sit and paint something and not have to think about all the shit that’s going on in his life right now. It’s easy. Rich likes easy.

He almost wishes his whole life could be like that. Easy. Where he doesn’t have to think about anything. He still hasn’t gotten used to having to do things. Everything is so mentally exhausting. 

Every once and awhile a conversation will be stilted and awkward. He can never tell what someone is thinking. The SQUIP had been able to tell him exactly what people wanted from him.

Now he has to figure out what people are thinking by himself. By watching facial expressions and tone and stuff like that. He’s getting better at remembering how that works but he had never been good at it in the first place. And he missed out on two years of practice. Sometimes it still feels like a lot of guesswork. 

He shakes his head slightly and goes back to painting. He needs to stop thinking like that. He has nothing to complain about. So what if he’s tired? So what if normal life still feels weird? He’s better now. He has real friends and hobbies that he enjoys. He’s doing well in school. It’s fine.

He’s fine. 

Everything’s fine.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (TW)References to how the SQUIP treated Rich

Rich wakes up covered in sweat and completely terrified. He sits up fast, throwing the blankets off the bed. He takes a slow, deliberate breath and puts himself back together. 

He grabs his phone to check the time, hands still shaking slightly. It’s almost three in the morning. He sets it down again and slowly lays himself back down.

The nightmare is fading already. He lets it. He wants to go back to sleep but he knows he’s not going to. He turns on his side and stares at the wall. He’s tired.

He’s just fucking tired. Of everything. Of everything still being so hard. Hell, sometimes he feels like he’s tired of thinking.

Stop. He’s not supposed to think like that anymore. That’s not how this works.

He’s getting better. That’s what he tells everyone so it has to be true. He flips over and shoves his head in his pillow. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s fine. 

He says it like a mantra. He holds on to the word ‘fine’ like it’s the only thing he has left. Repeats it until he’s sure it’s true. Repeats it until he forgets that maybe he’s not always okay. 

He has good days. He swears he has good days. Good weeks even. But it’s obviously not enough. Because he’s clearly not getting better. Getting better means that he’s supposed to be good. He’s supposed to have it figured out by now. And he doesn’t. At least, not completely. Which means he’s not better.

It’s inevitable. Even when he feels better, it’s not going to last for long. He’s still this lonely, awkward kid from freshman year. Just more scarred and more broken. 

At some point Rich decides to get ready for school. He doesn’t know when. Something tells him it’s too early. That it’s probably still the middle of the night. He frankly doesn’t care. 

He grabs a heavy jacket, one to throw on over his hoodie. He feels like someone told him it was going to be colder today. Or maybe he checked the weather. He’s not sure.

The sun is up which tells him he might as well start walking to school. About halfway through the walk he finally pulls his phone out again. It’s a little after six. He’s going to get to school almost an hour early at this rate. He slows his pace and continues. 

He doesn't know what time he gets to school but the parking lot is still empty. He walks inside and heads towards his locker. He shoves the jacket in it and closes the door. He knows that most of the classrooms are locked still because of how early he is. So he waits in the library until he hears the bell.

He spends most of the day on autopilot. He vaguely registers that that’s probably not a good thing. He doesn’t worry too hard about it. It feels easy and sorta familiar in a way he can’t be bothered to place.

At lunch Jeremy sends him a worried look. “Hey man, you good? You seem kinda out of it.”

He shrugs, “I’m fine, just tired. Don’t worry about it.”

Jeremy sends a pointed look in Michael’s direction. He’s not sure what it means but he has a feeling that Jeremy will, in fact, ‘worry about it’.

“Hey, me and Jeremy were going to play video games at my house today. You’re welcome to join us.” 

He doesn’t know if he’s really in the mood to play video games but he’s pretty much always in the mood to hang out with Michael. “Yeah, sure. Sounds cool.” 

He goes back to mindlessly scrolling through his phone. Pretty soon, the rest of the group joins and the table enters an animated conversation that Rich listens to but doesn’t join. Christine is sitting next to him. He can see her looking at him nervously but she never works up the courage to say anything. She continues talking to the rest of the table.

Midway through the conversation however, she pulls a notebook and two pencils out of her backpack. She opens the notebook so it’s oriented between them and slides one of the pencils in his direction. Then, without saying a word to him, she begins to draw. 

She starts sketching a simple flower with a few blades of grass near the base. All while maintaining normal conversation. 

Rich stares at the pencil for probably a solid two minutes. Then, finally, he puts down his phone and begins to draw alongside Christine. Next to her flower he draws a tree. She follows that by drawing a butterfly. 

He’s not exactly sure what’s happening. It’s almost like a conversation, except neither of them are using words. Regardless, it’s the most present Rich has felt all day. 

The bell rings and Christine closes the notebook. He hands her her pencil and watches her put it in her bag. He feels like he should say something. Like he should be thanking her. But she just smiles at him and walks away.

\---

Jeremy and Michael are ahead of him in the hallway. He told them to start towards Michael’s car while he grabbed his jacket from his locker. 

Taking a jacket out of a locker should be a simple thing. Something that you don’t need to think about. Something without life altering consequences. 

His eyes spot it sitting, wedged in the corner of his locker. He recognizes it immediately. How could he not? Rich could live to be a hundred years old and still recognize that grey, oblong pill anywhere.

He remembers shoving a shoe box filled with pills in his locker. Well, not him. It is. It’s sitting there controlling his body as it prepares to take over the school. It’s telling him he’s a coward. That he should be happy. That this benefits him. He can feel the electric shocks coursing through his body. He’s close to giving up. He doesn’t care anymore. The SQUIP knows it.

Theoretically, he knows what he should do. He should get rid of it. He should throw it away or crush it. He should drown it in a bottle of Mountain Dew Red and throw it off a cliff into an ocean somewhere. But he’s stood, frozen to the spot.

 **Don’t get rid of it,** a voice tells him. A voice that doesn’t quite sound like his own. A voice that sounds a lot like it. 

_Why shouldn’t I? It was the worst two years of my life,_ he thinks. Tries to think louder than the other voice, which doesn’t work.

**Was it? You had friends, power, and good grades. Was it really that bad?**

_I have those now._

**Barely. And you wouldn’t have them without me. You think Michael would care about you if you hadn't been SQUIPed? If he would even know who you are?**

Rich looks back to Michael and Jeremy who are talking while leaning up against a wall. He remembers them freshman year, even if they don’t remember him. They barely talked to anyone else, preferring to stay with each other. 

_No._

**Exactly. I got you where you are today. Don’t forget it.**

_Stop.Stop Stop Stop. You hurt me. You hurt other people. You hurt my friends._

**Get some perspective Richard. You always were an insolent coward.**

Rich’s hands are shaking. He clenches them into a fist but doesn’t respond.

**That’s what I thought. Think about it. You could be perfect. I could heal you Richard. No more nightmares, no more worrying about your dad. No more bad days.**

He is trying desperately not to cry. Because, fuck. Part of him is tempted. 

_You won’t let me stay friends with Michael. Or Jeremy. Or Christine._

**Says who? They’ve considerably upped their social status. They could remain in the group.**

_You’re just a voice in my head. You’re not it._

**It would be different this time.**

_I can’t know that._

**The rest of the SQUIPs were destroyed. No more secret world domination plan. I would just be there to help.**

_You aren’t her. You can’t know for sure._

**I want to help you Richard.**

“Hey Rich! You coming?” He hears Jeremy’s voice from down the hall and sees him and Jeremy start walking towards him. He grabs the jacket from his locker and keeps a close eye in the pill in the corner. As if he’s scared it’s going to jump down his throat by itself. 

They’re nearly there and he panics. He grabs the pill and curls his hand around it. Michael appears at his side and is trying not to look worried, “Dude, are you good?”

Rich slams the locker shut. He should tell them. He knows he should. But he just can’t.

“Yeah,” he says, faking a quick smile, “I’m fine.”

They all start walking down the hallway towards the parking lot. Rich hangs back momentarily, just for a split second. Once he’s sure Jeremy and Michael aren’t looking at him, he slips the SQUIP into his pocket.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (TW) References to how the SQUIP treated Rich

At Michael’s house he tries hard to act normal. Laugh at all the right moments, say all the right things. Be quiet, but not too quiet. It’s exhausting having people worry about him. So he tries hard to make everything seem normal. At least for a little while.

Not that people should be worried about him anyway. He’s not going to use it. Rich isn’t stupid. That thing was going to ruin his life. He burned down a house for the chance of stopping the SQUIP. He would be an idiot to give all that up. 

He just kept it because… because

“I’m going to get something to drink. Either of you want anything?” Michael stands up and pauses the game. They both say no and Michael heads up the stairs. Rich looks over at Jeremy who is currently on his phone.

“Hey Jeremy?”

“Yeah?” Jeremy replies absentmindedly. 

“How’d you beat it?” 

“Beat what?” 

“The SQUIP.” His voice comes out quiet and he thinks Jeremy might not have even heard him. But he looks over at Rich and slowly puts his phone down. 

“That’s a big question.” He rubs the back of his neck nervously. “My SQUIP synced up to everyone else's so it had a lot of people to control. Which I think gave me a window of free will and movement and stuff? Plus I had Michael to help and bring Mountain Dew Red.”

Jeremy looks down and fidgets with his hands before continuing, “Plus, I got lucky, I think? It SQUIPed Christine, who I wanted to date, which meant her SQUIP would do whatever I wanted it to do. So I wanted her to drink the Mountain Dew Red. It was basically a loophole. An error in the programming.” He shrugs, “Why did you want to know?”

Rich doesn’t tell him the real reason. That he’s scared. That he’s wondering if this was all planned from the beginning. If the SQUIP let Jeremy lose because it knew Rich would find it again. Which seems impossible. It can’t have predicted that, right? **Right.**

“Just… I fought a lot, near the end. And at the beginning too. But part of me gave up? I must have because you beat it. You’re just stronger than me, I guess.”

Jeremy widens his eyes and shakes his head slightly, “What? No, Rich that’s not true. You had it longer, it had more control. It knew you better, how to get you to do things. You are just as strong as-”

“Stop,” he interrupts. “We don’t have to talk about this anymore.” 

“But,” he starts but Michael enters the room. 

“You guys ready to finally beat level 9?” He sits down on the couch between them. 

Jeremy looks hesitant, “Um...”

Rich wants the conversation to be over. He smiles at Michael and nods toward the screen. “Yeah, only if you’re ready for me to beat you at Mario Kart later.”

Michael laughs, “You’re terrible at Mario Kart.” He grabs the controller and gets ready to start the game. 

Jeremy is still looking at him. Rich sends him a look that hopefully says ‘Don’t push it.’ He seems to get the message. He tries to play but he can’t really get his head in the game. He hears Jeremy’s words repeating in his head. 

It knew him better. It knew how to get him to do things. 

Was he playing into what the SQUIP wanted? Was this some sort of elaborate trap? 

**No.** There’s no way it could have predicted this. It’s not like the SQUIP purposefully dropped one pill in the locker as a backup plan. 

He can feel his hands shaking. He doesn’t know who to believe. He’s scared to make the wrong choice but he’s also scared that nothing will ever get better. That it doesn’t matter how many friends he has or what he does. There’s always going to be something wrong with him.

He takes a breath and tries to ignore the pill in his jean pocket. 

\---

The three of them play video games for a couple hours. At the end of a round of Mario Kart (Rich had placed last) Jeremy stood up and stretched his arms out. 

“I should probably go. I’ve got an essay due tomorrow that I haven’t even started yet so…,” he trails off and grabs his backpack. 

“Alright dude, I’ll see you later. You want a ride?”

Jeremy shakes his head as he pulls out his phone. “I’m good. It’s still kinda early, I can walk.”

Michael nods in response and Jeremy starts to walk up the basement stairs. At the top he turns, “See you both at school, alright?”

Rich gives him a wave and turns back to find Michael looking at him. “What now?”

He shrugs and leans into the corner of the couch. “I dunno. Whatever?”

“We could eat? I don’t know, let me think.”

Rich feels the urge to try talking again. He tried with Jeremy but bailed the second it got slightly serious. Maybe with Michael it would be different. Maybe he could figure out a way to talk about it without really getting to the problem at hand. Talk about it without letting Michael know what’s in his pocket. 

Starting conversations is weird. How does it even work? He knows Michael will want to talk about it. He keeps preaching the whole ‘talk about your feelings’ thing. But they never really discussed how. 

He glances over at Michael, who’s reading something on his phone, and blurts out, “You know it made me work out?”

Michael’s phone clicks off and he turns to look at him, “What?” he says softly. Not mean, not confused, just asking. 

“The SQUIP. It would make me work out. And sometimes, when I worked out so much that it hurt to move, it would take over my body and work out for me. Like, force my muscles to work.”

Michael slowly gets up and sits down on the other end of the couch.

“It was like that all the time. It would shock me or yell at me. It fucking sucked dude.”

He thinks he hears Michael whisper out an ‘I’m sorry’ but he’s not really listening at this point. 

“Getting rid of the lisp was the worst. It tried to teach me to talk normally for like the first two days. That was over the summer. Said it wouldn’t let me leave the house until I could talk like a normal person. Every moment I was awake I was practicing and anytime I wasn’t good enough I would get shocked.” Rich can feel his eyes welling up with tears but ignores it as he continues. 

“But eventually it decided that I wasn’t learning fast enough cause it just took over my voice. Basically any word that would cause me to lisp the SQUIP would be moving my mouth for me. Even if it wasn’t telling me what to say it would fuck with my jaw or tongue or whatever and make the words come out right.”

He looks down and sees Michael extend his hand, palm up, in between the two of them. He makes eye contact with him and Michael nods slightly. He grabs the hand. 

“And like, I get that the SQUIP was bad. I really do. It hurt a lot of people Michael, not just me.” He’s fully crying now but makes no effort to stop the tears from running down his face. “But sometimes I forget? Or ignore it? I don’t know.”

Michael squeezes his hand reassuringly. “What do you mean?”

“Freshman year I had nothing. I had no one. Anything good that came out of my life was because of that stupid pill. Like, it sucked, but people talked to me. People noticed me.”

Michael reaches forward and grabs his other hand. “Rich, you know you can’t think like that. That thing was bad news, okay? It was like, objectively evil in multiple ways.”

**Assigning morality to a computer program is ridiculous. You needed friends, I gave them to you. How that was accomplished is practically irrelevant.**

_You’re not helping._

“I know. And I hate that I even think about it that way. But do the math. Objectively, she did kinda help fix parts of my life.”

“No,” Michael looks straight in his eyes, “Anything that hurts you, mentally or physically, for years like that pill did is not good, do you hear me? No pros outweigh those cons, ever.”

“But we wouldn’t even be talking right now if I hadn’t been SQUIPed! You’re only my friend because of what happened to Jeremy and that’s because of the SQUIP. All of my current friends only talk to me because of her. Just think about it Michael.”

“I am thinking about it. I would be friends with you, SQUIP or no SQUIP. We were both dumb freshman year, okay? Too scared to go out and talk to people. But if I met you back then I would have been friends with you. I know that because I’m friends with you now.”

He nods slowly and wipes the tears from his face, “Can I stay here tonight? I don’t really want to go home.” He's scared that he's going to do something stupid if he goes home.

Michael gives him a small smile and nods. He opens his arms for a hug and Rich all but collapses into him. 

Michael wraps his arms around him tightly. “All the good stuff that’s in your life right now? It’s because of you Rich. You and Jake repaired your relationship, you befriended Christine. I’m friends with you because I like you. I like hanging out with you. That’s all your hard work. It has nothing to do with the SQUIP.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he mumbles.

**You know he’s lying right? No one would have looked at you twice if the SQUIP thing never happened. You would have nothing in common with any of these people. They wouldn't have been caught dead talking to you.**

He rubs his hand over his jean pocket to check that the SQUIP is still in there and curls deeper into Michael’s torso. 

_Yeah, I know._


	17. Chapter 17

When Rich gets home the next day he doesn’t destroy the SQUIP. But he also doesn’t use it. He shoves it on a shelf in the back of his closet so he doesn’t have to think about it for the time being.

He couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. He tried. Grabbed the heaviest textbook he has and was ready to smash it to bits. But something just stopped him. Sometimes he wonders if the SQUIP actually altered how his brain worked. If it put in some sort of failsafe to keep him from actually destroying it. 

Because that’s the preferable option. He knows that Jeremy was able to destroy his. But he would rather think that his brain is broken then entertain the fact that some part of him would be willing to take it again. The logical side of his brain doesn’t want to get near it and he agrees. However, with each day that passes Rich is finding that he may not be as logical as he thinks he is.

So for now it sits in the back of his closet. As sort of a safety blanket. A ‘break glass in case of emergency’ situation. And if Rich bought a bottle of Mountain Dew to put in the back of his closet just in case then that’s his business. 

He still hasn’t told anybody. No sense is getting everybody all worked up. They would be mad at him for keeping a secret. Or they would feel like they can’t trust him. Like deep down he’s still the bully everyone thought he was back when he was SQUIPed. 

Plus, they would want to destroy it. And Rich isn’t sure he’s ready for that just yet. Even though he thinks he’s not going to take it. 

The SQUIP made all of his decisions for him. It lived his life for him. If Rich is going to prove to himself that he’s fine, he has to make his own decisions. Including the question of what to do with the SQUIP. He’s tired of other people living his life for him. Which means he needs to pretend like everything's fine. No one gives you advice or tells you what to do if you seemingly have your whole life together. 

He’s in tech but sometimes he wonders if he should have joined the musical. These last few days have proved that, if he works hard enough, he’s not half bad at acting normal. Surely, some of that acting ability could have translated onto the stage. 

For now he’s backstage during a rehearsal. It’s been a slow day so far. All he has to do is help move props around. But the cast has been working out the blocking for one scene the entire time so there haven’t been many props to move. He’s standing off to the side, just waiting for a job to do. There are other cast members and some tech crew backstage but no one is really talking to him. People aren’t supposed to talk backstage but they do anyway. Rich likes to think that he follows the rules and isn’t just lonely. 

He silently adds that to the mental list he’s been taking. 

_Taking the SQUIP would mean more friends._

He picks at the skin near his fingernails as he watches the stage. Christine is doing a monologue and Mr.Reyes can’t seem to figure out whether he wants her to stand still or move around. As he studies Christine he adds a bullet point to the ‘Cons’ side of his mental pros and cons list. 

_Quality vs Quantity. It’s probably better to keep the good friends you have now then to make a bunch of fake ones with a computer program._

He runs a hand nervously through his hair as he realizes his two additions kinda cancel each other out. This was a lot more complicated than he thought. When he looks up he realizes that the rehearsal is ending. He helps clear the stage and goes to grab his backpack. When he’s about to leave however, Jeremy walks over to him.

“Hey, can we talk?” He nods his head in the direction of the hallway. 

“Yeah?” Rich follows him to the hallway. Jeremy stays silent and watches the rest of the student mill out of the theater. He looks nervous but Jeremy always looks a little nervous. Now, he looks more nervous then usual. Christine, Brooke, and Jenna are the last ones out and they each wave a quick goodbye before exiting the school.

When the hallway is relatively empty Jeremy speaks, “Are you good? Like really?”

This is not where he thought this conversation was heading. Maybe his acting wasn’t as good as he thought. Doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying. “Fine, why?”

“You came to school a couple days ago and barely said a word?” he starts. “You started asking me weird questions about the SQUIP and then pretended it didn’t happen. Now you just seem, I don’t know, off?”

“Don’t know what to tell you dude. I’m fine.” He begins to walk off and hopes that Jeremy doesn’t follow him. 

Jeremy has different plans and matches his pace as they walk down the hallway. “Look, I wouldn’t be asking if people weren’t worried. Having an emotional breakdown or whatever and then acting like nothing's wrong usually doesn’t mean good things so…”

Rich takes a moment to decipher Jeremy’s statement and when he does he stops in his tracks. “What ‘people’ are worried? And what do you mean ‘emotional breakdown?’ I asked you one question about the SQUIP because I was curious.”

He immediately looks guilty and Rich comes to the obvious conclusion. “Michael talked to you didn’t he?”

Jeremy shoves his hands deep in his pockets and breaks eye contact. “He said you were upset and stayed over. But then you left before he even got up and didn’t say anything. That you barely acknowledged it. That’s all he said, I swear. He’s just worried.”

This was fucking ridiculous. “Well, tell your boyfriend that I’m fine.” He starts walking again, a bit faster this time.

He hears Jeremy’s voice from down the hall, “Tell him yourself.”

\---

 **Rich (5:32):** why did you tell jer what happened at ur house

 **Michael (5:34):** I didn’t tell him what happened. I just said I was worried. 

**Michael (5:34):** For the record, he was worried too. It’s not like the conversation came out of nowhere.

 **Rich (5:35):** so you just talk about my problems with everyone now 

**Michael (5:35):** no

 **Rich (5:35):** nothings good enough is it

 **Rich (5:36):** if i dont talk aboutmy problems im closed off but if i do talk about them you get worried and run off to jeremy

 **Michael (5:37):** There was obviously something more going on that you weren’t telling me

 **Rich (5:38):** how would you know? you never asked you should have told me you were worried

 **Michael (5:39):** I’m sorry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this fic isnt going to be just angst yall just have to to trust me


	18. Chapter 18

“Rich!” 

He’s in the middle of walking home, trying to figure out what to do about Michael, when he hears a voice call out his name. He turns around to see Jenna Rolan. He and Jenna aren’t close and he’s really not in the mood to talk right now. He keeps walking and hopes that she gets the message. 

She doesn't, which he could’ve guessed. She calls his name again. Jenna is nothing if not persistent. He slows down so she can catch up to him. 

The second she’s within speaking distance she starts talking. “Hey, what’s up?”

He glances down at his phone, towards Michael’s apology, and back up at her. “Look Jenna, I’m really not in the mood right now so-”

“Obviously something’s going on with you and I think I have a pretty good idea of what it is and how to help.” She crosses her arms over her chest and quirks an eyebrow slightly. “Unless, of course, you have somewhere else to be?”

He doesn’t and has a feeling Jenna knows this. He had been going home but having a conversation with Jenna was clearly the preferable option.

She takes his silence as an answer. “That’s what I thought. Come on.” She walks off, turning down the street. 

“Where are you going?”

“Well, I thought standing here talking on the sidewalk would be awkward. Might as well go somewhere” She continues, not really giving him a chance to argue with her logic. 

He follows, “You said you know what’s going on with me?” This worried him. I mean, she can’t know everything, right? She can’t possibly know about the pill hidden in his closet right now.

She smiles. “I don’t know but I have a pretty good guess.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“You like Michael but you’re worried he doesn’t like you. You pretend to be okay, even when you’re not, because you don’t want Michael worrying about you. When he calls you out on that you get defensive. Right now, something big happened that he wants to know about but you don’t want to talk about and there’s tension. Am I close?”

Rich is stunned even though he’s known Jenna long enough to have expected that level of accuracy. “How do you do that?”

“A girl never reveals her secrets.” She shrugs. “Just because I stopped gossiping doesn’t mean I forgot how to figure stuff out. I’m still good at finding stuff out and reading people.”

He nods his head in acknowledgement. She softly bumps her shoulder against his. “You know you have to talk now. That was all speculation. I can’t give you advice if you don’t give me at least some of the story.”

He sighs, “I like Michael. A lot. Just sometimes he’s a bit too much.”

“In what way?”

“I feel like he wants to know everything. Anytime I have a problem he needs to know every detail. Even if I’m not ready to talk about it.”

She looks over at him. “Your problem is that he cares too much?”

“What? No, I…” he trails off as he realizes that she’s kinda right. “Look, I made him a sort of promise to open up more. And I thought I did! Even though I didn’t mention everything on my mind at that moment, I still talked. Voluntarily! Like he didn’t even make me. It was my choice.” 

“But,” he continues, “He freaked out. Thought there was more going on. Which there was but I didn’t want to talk about it just yet. But instead of coming to me he went to Jeremy. He talked about my shit to other people.”

“Okay. Now what?” 

“I thought that was your job.” He looks around and sees they’ve arrived at the park that’s near his house. Jenna sits down at a bench. 

“What do you want to happen? Like, at the end of the day, what’s your goal?”

He joins her on the bench. “I don’t know. I didn’t think about that.”

She leans back. “Well think about it now.”

Rich pauses for a minute before finally saying, “I want us not to be mad at each other any more.”

“Alright. And the whole ‘Michael wanting you to be more open and you trying to talk about stuff’ thing. Is this something that comes up a lot or is this the first time?”

He thinks back. Almost any time him and Michael disagreed about something the crux of the issue was always similar. “No, it keeps happening.”

“Okay,” she looks at him, “So I’m going to guess you want it to stop happening?”

“Yeah, that would be nice.” 

She nods and seemingly takes a moment to collect her thoughts. He follows her gaze as they both watch a squirrel scurry up a tree. After a minute she lets out a slow breath and turns towards him.

“Relationships take work. You and Michael both need to work together. Sometimes you feel like he’s putting pressure on you to open up. But he feels like you’re hiding things from him. He needs to work with you but you have to be willing to let him in.”

“I did open up and he screwed me over.” He crosses his arms and breaks eye contact with Jenna. Why does no one get it? He is trying.

“Maybe, out of concern. He thought he was helping.” 

“He wasn't.”

He hears her sigh and our of the corner of his eye he sees her prop one arm onto the back of the bench. “Okay,” she relents, “Look, Michael probably should have brought his concerns up with you first.”

He scoffs, “Yeah, you think?”

“But what would you have done if he did?”

Fuck, what would he have done? Probably something similar to what he said to Jeremy earlier today. Played it off and then ran off with a stupid remark. He considers lying but has a feeling she’ll call him out on it. “I would have told him I was fine.”

“Even if you weren’t,” she finishes. “Which means he probably would’ve enlisted help from Jeremy anyway.”

He runs a hand through his hair, pausing slightly to grab the ends and tug enough to hurt. “Fuck, so I can’t win? I just have to say everything I’m feeling all the time no matter what?”

“No,” she says. “But you could say something like ‘Hey, I’m feeling down and don’t want to get into specifics right now. Maybe we can talk later or we can just hang out until I'm ready?”

Oh. He hadn’t considered that. He did that before, after having the panic attack in Michael’s basement. He asked to talk later and Michael agreed. He never really thought that could be something he could try regularly. Of course, they had fought after, but after 7/11 things had been good for a while.

“But this time he didn’t give me an option. He did it behind my back.” He turns back towards Jenna and she shrugs slightly. 

“Then that’s what you tell him.”

“Yeah I already told him that’s why I was upset. I texted him, like, right before you found me.”

She rolls her eyes. “Tell him again when you’re not mad.”

“But I think I am mad. At least a little.”

“Rich,” she looks directly into his eyes. “Do you hate him?”

“No.”

“Does he hate you?”

“No.”

“Do you still like him?”

Right now that’s a complicated question. He pauses for a minute. “I don't know. I don't like that we fight but I like him.

“All relationships come with disagreements. What those disagreements are about and how you deal with them are how you decide whether a relationship is a good one.”

Jenna pulls her phone on to check the time as if she didn’t just drop a bombshell of good advice on him. “So, how do I fix it?”

She stands up and turns to face him. “Talk to him. Sort this whole thing out first. Then, just be friends with him again. If you work as friends you might have a shot at working as a couple.” She smiles like she knows something he doesn’t. Though, since it’s Jenna, she probably does. 

He stands up next to her. “When did you get so good at this relationship stuff?”

She sighs and slides her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “I’ve been told I’m a good listener.” Her face drops and she looks somewhat conflicted before continuing. “Plus, I’ve spread a lot of information about a lot of people. Not all of it good. You ruin other people’s relationships enough you figure out what makes a good one.” 

She nods, almost to herself, and turns to walk away. Rich is left with the stark contrast of this Jenna to the one he knew before. The old Jenna who talked about everything and everyone. Who figured out that if you can’t get an invite based on looks or personality you can weave one out of information. She was sneaky and ruthless, and probably pretty lonely. 

But the Jenna who’s walking away right now is different. She listens, not to gain information, but to help. As she walks away though, she looks just as sad. Rich wants to help but has no idea how. He gives it his best shot though. 

“Hey Jenna!” he calls after her. She turns to look at him. “Thanks. You’re a good friend.”

She smiles wide and gives him a small wave before continuing walking off. He waves goodbye back even though she’s already turned and can’t see him. After a moment he pulls out his phone and starts to walk home.

 **Rich (6:22):** meet me at 711 tomorrow


	19. Chapter 19

Rich is waiting outside the 7/11 with two slushies in hands when he sees Michael’s PT Cruiser pull into the parking lot. Michael gets out slowly and walks over to him. Neither of them say anything for a moment and Rich shoves one of the slushies towards him. 

“Thanks.” He accepts the slushie. “Not to mess with your weird 'cool kid in a teen movie vibe',” he gestures to Rich, who is leaning up against the wall in a black hoodie, drinking a slushie, and staring off into the distance, “But why are we at 7/11?”

“Last time we argued we went to 7/11. Figured I’d keep up the tradition.”

“We should fight more often. I always need more excuses to go get slushies,” he laughs slightly trying to relieve the tension. Then, more hesitant, “Are we, you know, actually fighting?”

“No,” Rich says. “Not really anyway. But we should probably talk.” He looks over at Michael who's currently looking very intensely down at his feet. But he still nods in agreement. 

“Look, what exactly happened with Jeremy? How much did you tell him?” He doesn't want to get mad over nothing. If the whole conversation was ‘Hey, Rich seems weird.’ ‘Yeah, I agree’ then he probably overreacted. But he has a feeling that something more went down. 

“We were worried about you Rich. You had barely said a word that day at school. Then you came to my house, practically cried in my arms, and then ignored that it ever happened. So when Jeremy asked me if you were alright I didn’t know what to say. He said that you two talked and that he thought whatever was going on was SQUIP related.” He looks up nervously at Rich before backtracking slightly. “That’s all he said I swear! Just that you two talked about SQUIP stuff, I promise he didn’t say anything at all. Don’t be mad at Jeremy too.”

“Michael, don’t worry. I’m not mad.” Michael nods and continues. 

“I was worried and didn’t know what to do. Jeremy seemed to know a little about what was going on so I took that as my opening. I talked about what happened. Not the specifics of what you said. Just that you talked about the SQUIP and were really upset.”

Rich raises his eyebrows. “Jeremy called it an ‘emotional breakdown.’” 

“Okay,” Michael gives in., “I went into a little detail.”

Rich runs his free hand through his hair and looks over at Michael. “Look, I’m not mad. Not really. I reacted pretty suddenly. I know if I had a friend who had acted like that I would probably want help from other people. I just wish you had talked to me first. You wanted to know if something was wrong with me and it felt like you asked everyone but me.”

“What would you have done if I had asked what had been going on with you?",he replies. "No offense Rich, you tend to not be big on talking. The fact that you left my house without saying a word was a pretty big indicator that you weren’t going to talk.”

“You could have tried. It was about my feelings and my issues and you went to Jeremy first.” Michael silently kicks a stone as Rich continues. “I promised I would try to be more open and you didn’t trust me to do that. That hurt Michael.” What he doesn’t mention is that Michael is probably right. He might not have told him about the SQUIP. But that’s not really the point. At least, he doesn’t think it is.

“Yeah,” Michael looks up at him. “I’m sorry, really. I could have talked with you first. I jumped to conclusions a little bit. I won’t next time.”

“I know,” Rich says. “You’re, like, forgiven, by the way. In case you were worrying about it.” Michael smiles slightly. “Look, the last two years of my life were fucked. Hell, a lot of my life has been messed up. There’s some stuff I just can’t talk about yet. Alright?”

“Yeah, I get it. I just worry, you know?” 

Rich knows. They wouldn’t be having this conversation if he didn’t know how much Michael worried about him. It’s nice and kind of terrifying. He hums in acknowledgment. 

Michael glances over at him. “Now what? Do you want to come over to my house and hang out, or?”

He shrugs, trying to appear casual. Like he's not ecstatic that Michael still wants to hang out with him. “Yeah, that’d be cool.” They both start heading towards Michael’s car. As they walk Michael hesitantly speaks up.

“Hey, Rich. When you were at my house the other day and talking about SQUIP stuff. That wasn’t out of nowhere, right? Something triggered it?”

Rich nods stiffly. 

“Would you want to talk about whatever that was? Maybe not now but later?” He looks nervous, like Rich is going to do something stupid again. Like yell at him, or lie, or run off. 

He can’t tell him. Him and Michael are about to go back to being friends. Rich had gotten mad again. And Michael had agreed to talk it out, again. He can’t tell him that he found a SQUIP and kept it. That he fucking considered using it. Michael would hate him. They would never talk again. He would lose his whole group of friends. Then there might be a legitimate reason for him to use the stupid thing. 

He hates lying to Michael. Hates the fact that he’s going to hide it from him. But the idea of never talking to him again....that’s worse.

Michael is looking at him expectantly. “No, that’s probably not going to happen.” Rich gets into the front seat of Michael’ car. “But, honestly, don’t worry about it. I figured it out myself. At least I’m going to. I know what I have to do. I think.”

He smiles as he starts the car. “That super vague answer doesn’t instill me with the confidence I would like. But I’m going to trust you.”

He nods as he looks out the window. Frankly, his own answer doesn’t make him feel very confident. But the car pulls out of the parking lot and Rich turns his mind to whatever video game they’re going to play when they get to Michael’s house.


	20. Chapter 20

Rich takes Jenna’s advice and just focuses on being friends with Michael. And after a couple of days things go back to the way they were. It’s fun and comfortable and safe. It’s like they’ve hit their groove again. 

\---

“Dude, you’re supposed to go left so we can cut the zombies off! Not end up stuck in a corner!” 

“It’s not my fault I forgot how to go backwards!”

Michael leans into the back of the couch. “You just turn around,” he laughs, miming the motion on his controller. 

“Yeah, well you’ve been playing this game since you were, like five.” he replies. “I've been doing it for two weeks.”

“That’s fair.” He nods towards the screen. “Ready to try again?”

Rich smiles. “Yeah, lets go.”

He restarts the level and Rich somehow ends up wandering into the middle of a hoard of zombies. Which promptly eats him. All in under a minute. The game over text flashes and Michael turns towards Rich. They both laugh as he restarts the level again. 

\---

And slowly, other things in his life start to get better. He forces himself to relax, to stop thinking so much, and to just enjoy the fact that he has good people who are actually nice to him. 

\---

Rich is the last to get to the lunch table that day. Before he even gets a chance to sit down Christine practically jumps up from her seat to greet him. 

“Rich! You had that English test today, right? How do you think it went?” She’s looking at him, eyes gleaming. They had spent two hours studying at the library for it yesterday. In exchange Rich had helped Christine with her lines in the musical. 

“Um, pretty good. At least I think so.” He sits down at the table. “It was about symbolism in Death of a Salesman.”

Christine smiles before realizing that she’s been standing this whole time. She plops back down in her seat. “Really? That’s great! You really had that down last night. I’m sure you nailed it.”

He shrugs. “I mean, I feel like I knew what I was talking about. I just didn’t know how to put it into words.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Jake pipes up. “I’m sure you did fine.” He offers up a fist bump which Rich returns. 

“Well, you probably did better on it than I'm going to do on this physics test,” Jeremy adds. “I heard Madeline mention that there was going to be a pop quiz today which sucks because I don’t know anything about wavelengths.” He gestures hopelessly down towards a notebook. 

Rich glances over at Chloe, who stares at him, annoyed for a moment, before rolling her eyes and turning towards Jeremy. “Here, give me your notes and I’ll teach you what I can.”

Jeremy looks surprised, “Um, what? Uh, you don’t, I mean, uh you know? I can figure it-”

Chloe interrupts him by grabbing his notebook and flipping through it. “You're lucky I like you Heere.”

Michael, who is on Rich’s left, leans toward him. “How did you get Chloe to do physics with just a look?” he whispers.

Rich whispers back, “A boy never reveals his secrets.” Michael smiles and shakes his head slightly. Rich turns to focus on something Brooke is saying. He doesn’t even notice that he and Michael are sitting so close to each other that their shoulders are touching. 

\---

It’s not easy. He can’t just change how he thinks. There’s still a part of him that feels like he doesn’t deserve forgiveness he’s gotten. Or that these people will leave him. Or that they only hang out with him because they feel like they have too. Some days it’s hard to figure out if he’s thinking bad things about himself or if it’s the phantom SQUIP. If he’s thinking or remembering.

\---

He’s late for school because he couldn’t figure out how to get dressed. He tried. But his brain felt like it had just shut off. He just stared at his closet for 20 minutes before finally pulling himself out of his daze long enough to grab a shirt and a pair of jeans.

At school, he spends the rest of the day hesitating every time before he speaks. Like he’s waiting for a voice other than his to fill in the gap in the conversation. He tries to act like he’s thinking of something to say rather than waiting for something to tell him what to say next. 

He must have been too quiet because Michael invited him and Jeremy over to play video games.

\---

Eventually, he decides it doesn’t matter. Whichever voice it is, Rich chooses not to believe it. He puts every ounce of effort into telling himself that he doesn’t believe it. He tells himself that those thoughts aren’t true. He is trying to be a good person again. That's what matters. Sometimes, he feels like he’s actually convinced himself.

\---

It’s musical rehearsal and Rich is waiting backstage. Right now he’s just in charge of the curtain. He finally learned how to operate the lights last week but Mr.Reyes still hasn’t decided what types of lighting cues he wants and where. So Rich spends his time backstage moving props around with the rest of the crew. 

He can see Brooke and Jeremy whispering to each other on the other side, as a scene neither of them are in continues on the stage. Jeremy picks up a prop sword and pretends to stab Brooke with it. Her hand clutches the fake wound and she mimes falling to her death. 

Jeremy looks over and sees Rich watching them. He puts down the sword and turns his hand into a finger gun and pretends to shoot Rich from across the stage. Rich, not in the mood to fake die, mimes dodging the bullet.

Jeremy looks like he’s ready to try again but Mr.Reyes voice calls out from the front of the theater, “Mr.Heere?” 

All three of them look to the stage to see that the scene has ended. Which means that Jeremy is supposed to be on. He runs out, almost tripping over his own feet. 

Brooke makes eye contact with Rich from her place on the ground, seemingly recovering from her fake stab wound. She smiles and waves at Rich. He waves back.

\---

No. It’s not easy. It’s not perfect. Rich wouldn't say he’s good. But he’s slowly coming to the realization that he is getting better. That a bad day or moment doesn’t erase all the other good days. One mistake doesn’t automatically get rid of all the things that he’s gotten right. 

\---

“Any requests?”

“This may surprise you,” Rich starts, “but no.”

Michael smiles as he pulls out of the school parking lot. “Okay, so I know we’re supposed to be going to Pink Berry right now.”

“Yeah?” He’s not sure what’s happening but Michael’s tone makes him suspect that they might not be going directly to Pink berry.

“Let’s just say we got lost on the way and stopped at Spencer’s before getting there.”

“Mmn,” he hums, playing along. “And why exactly would we get lost?’

“Because my hookup has a bottle of Strawberry Pepsi that I kinda want to get my hands on?”

“I’m assuming this isn’t just hypothetical?”

Michael shrugs, “Consider it payment for me giving you rides everywhere.”

“Oh? Here I thought my friendship was payment enough.”

\---

Rich wouldn’t say he’s good. But he doesn’t need to be. Better doesn’t mean fixed. Computers get fixed. People grow and change. Which he doesn’t have to do all by himself.

\---

_Squip Squad_

**Rich (6:50):** guys my brian isnt working today what shirt do i wear?

 **Jenna (6:51):** your brian????

 **Rich (6:51):** your really going to correct my grammar in a time like this?

 **Jenna (6:51):** ...

 **Jenna (6:51):** you’re

 **Rich (6:52):** im going to go to school shirtless bc of you

 **Jake (6:52):** just wear a hoodie with no shirt under it

 **Rich (6:52):** i left my hoodie at michaels house he’s bringing it to school today!!! 

**Jeremy (6:53):** i can barely make my own life choices dude 

**Christine (6:54):** Wear the red one

 **Chloe (6:54):** but its a different shade of red then his hair

 **Christine (6:54):** So?

 **Jenna (6:55):** chloe literally no one would care except for you

 **Chloe (6:55):** he asked 4 fashion advice what do u want from me

 **Jeremy (6:55):** i think he asked for “how to act like a human advice” but whatev

 **Brooke (6:56):** i like the gray one!!

 **Rich (6:56):** you guys have made this far more complicated 

**Michael (6:57):** blue 

**Rich (6:57):** fine im wearing the blue one

_Jake >>>Rich_

**Jake (6:58):** taking mells suggestion huh…

 **Rich (7:01):** shutup

\---

Rich isn’t a computer anymore. And he’s not the same person he was before the SQUIP. But that’s okay. Because he’s human. And Rich can live with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is called i changed up my usual writing style a little bit bc i could and i thought it was fun (writing style?format? i dont know you guys I have ideas and they become words)


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Heavily implied/referenced child abuse (Rich's father isn't present but he is mentioned), and a panic attack.

The cold wind stings the bare skin of his arms as he walks. Rich isn’t sure how late it is but it’s dark enough that he has to rely on the street lamps to see where he’s going. Not that it matters if he can see. He doesn’t really have a destination in mind. 

He didn’t think about where to go. He still isn’t thinking about it, all he’s focusing on is walking. Rich doesn’t know where he is right now except for the fact that he’s outside. He can’t think about it. Won’t allow himself to think about anything right now. 

If he thinks about where he’s going, he’ll think about why he’s outside right now. Which he really doesn’t want to do. Because he doesn’t want to think about his dad right now. 

But he never wants to think about his dad. It’s easier to pretend or to ignore it. He already has to live with it every time he’s at home so why should he think about it anywhere else? Rich already has too much stuff on his mind so he tries his best to keep _that_ separate. Not that he’s successful.

The tip of his shoe hits a crack in the sidewalk and Rich is launched back into the present as he tumbles onto the grass. “Fuck,” he mumbles, his voice sounder much louder in the quiet night. 

He sits up slowly, moving so he’s sitting on the curb. He’s not hurt, at least not more then he already was, so that’s a plus. Under the dim light of the lamp on the street corner, Rich examines the new grass stain on his jeans and begins to plan.

He can’t just keep walking all night. Well, he could theoretically but he doesn't want to. Also, he probably shouldn’t. He already has a feeling that he is going to wake up with bruises tomorrow. And the area by his ribs is killing him. He shifts momentarily and feels the pain radiate from his torso.

Shit. His ribs aren’t broken, right? Cause that would be bad. That would be really, really bad. He can’t deal with a broken bone (or bones) right now. He doesn’t even know where the hospital is. His dad wouldn’t be happy about him going to the hospital twice in one year.

He feels his chest tighten and when he goes to take his next breath it’s shallow and quick. Fuck, maybe he punctured a lung. That’s a thing, right? 

Okay, that would be bad. He tries to sit up straighter and forces himself to take a deep breath. It catches in his throat and everything hurts. He’s going to die. He’s going to suffocate and live the rest of his life on this street corner. A hand springs to his mouth as he attempts to muffle a sob.

Stop. He’s going to call attention to himself and the last thing he needs is strangers asking questions. 

He tries another breath. _I’m not dying._ It burns in his throat. He tries again. _I’m not dying._ He doesn’t get any air.

He keeps trying. He doesn’t know how long it's been but eventually his breathing steadies. As he calms down he registers a weight pressing down on his shoulders. For the first time, he realizes he has a backpack with him. He’s not sure what’s in it or when he grabbed it. He curls his knees in towards his chest as he thinks. He needs a plan. 

Usually, the SQUIP would tell him to go to Jake’s house. But that had been different. Jake lived in a house with no adults. Rich had been able to crash in his basement no questions asked. He has a feeling that the scenario would be quite different this time.

Next, he considers Jeremy. If only for the fact that he wouldn’t need to explain. Their SQUIPs synced, so he figures Jeremy knows enough. But he’s not super close with Jeremy. The idea of showing up to Jeremy’s like this is daunting to say the least. 

He looks up and down the street. A quick glance at the sign shows him that he’s about a block away from Michael’s house. Admittedly, this option is the most appealing. For one, it’s the closest. Plus, Michael has a tendency to stay up late so he will probably still be awake to let him in. And… it’s Michael. 

He begins walking. The next street isn’t lit up and he quickens his pace as he walks through the dark neighborhood. By the time he approaches Michael's house he is aware of the cold more than ever. Thankfully, he has his phone on him. 

**Rich (1:26):** are you awake

He bounces on his toes, trying to stay warm. Out of the corner of his eye he spots a decorative rock on the corner of one of the neighbors lawns. Rich sits as he waits for Michael to text him back. 

**Michael (1:29):** yeah whats up

**Rich (1:29):** can i come over

**Michael (1:30):** now? Or like in general?

**Rich (1:30):** now

He quickly realizes the downside to going to Michael’s. Michael has no context for any of this. To him, it might seem like Rich is just bored. He doesn’t wait for a response as he sends his next text. 

**Rich (1:30):** im outside rn

He knows that kinda forces Michael’s hand and he feels bad about it but he didn’t have much of a choice. He can always choose to kick him out later.

**Michael (1:32):** meet me at the backdoor.

Michael is standing on the patio in a pair of sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, hair slightly messy. As Rich lifts the latch on the gate he sees Michael turn towards the sound. He rushes towards him but stops when Rich comes into full view. 

“Rich,” he says, his voice quiet. Looking him up and down, he asks, “Are you okay?”

Evidently, Rich looks worse than he thought he did. But he is not eager to talk about whether he is ‘okay’. He feels like that answer is obvious. “Can I stay here tonight?”

“Yeah, of course you can,” he says quickly, eyebrows furrowed slightly. “But please, are you okay?”

Michael clearly isn’t in the mood to let this one go. Rich has a feeling that him staying over might be contingent on how much he tells Michael. He tries to get away with saying as little as possible. “It’s not that bad.”

This only seems to distress Michael more. “What isn’t ‘that bad’? What happened? Are you, I don’t know, safe?”

He tries to explain, he wants to be able to tell him. ~~_He was mad. He pushed me into a wall. ___~~ _ _He opens his mouth but the words get caught in his throat. “Look, I didn’t....,” he sighs, “I couldn’t stay at home tonight. If I can’t stay here I’ll find somewhere el-”__

__“What?” he interrupts. “No, you can stay here, I promise.” He begins walking back towards the house._ _

__Rich lingers behind, feet buried in grass that likely hasn’t been cut in over a week. “Will, uh, will your parents be mad?”_ _

__He turns back toward the yard. Michael stares at him for a moment, like he’s studying him. He seems to choose his words carefully. “One of my moms had a conference for work so she’s out of town right now. My other mom works early so if you leave later neither of them will know.” He takes a slow step towards him. “But it would be fine if they did, okay? Like it’s totally fine. They’re not going to make you leave or get mad. And you don't have to hide or anything.”_ _

__Rich nods. Michael opens the sliding backdoor and waits for him. Together, they walk inside, up the stairs, and into Michael’s bedroom._ _

__Rich stands in the doorway of Michael’s room. The bed clearly hasn’t been made in a while. He has band posters lining the walls and his dresser is covered in various objects. At first glance he notices a Rubik's cube (still unsolved), Michael’s headphones, and piles of school work._ _

__Michael walks up to him and gestures towards his shoulders, “Here, um, I’ll take that.” He reaches for Rich’s backpack and slides it off his shoulders before placing it in the corner next to his own. He looks back and scratches the back of his neck. “Do you want a pair of sweatpants or something? I mean, you can sleep in jeans but as far as I’m concerned that’s a sin.”_ _

__Michael digs around in a dresser drawer before finding a pair of black sweatpants and tosses them over to Rich. “I left my phone downstairs; I’ll be right back.” He exits the room._ _

__Rich slips into the pants. Michael, while not as tall as Jake, is still taller than Rich by a good amount. The fabric bunches up at his feet but Rich is too tired to try and fix it. He places his jeans on top of his backpack and waits for Michael to return._ _

__He doesn’t know what to do. If he should sit down or say something or what. He fishes his phone out of his jeans pockets, if only so he could look like he had been doing something other than standing around silent for two minutes._ _

__Finally, Michael walks back through the door. “Good,” he says. “They fit.” His eye trail downwards towards Rich’s ankles. “Well, mostly.”_ _

__Rich doesn’t really know how to respond to that. He shrugs as he sways on his feet. He’s never done this before. The SQUIP used to handle these situations. Well, it had handled everything. It feels open, raw. Usually, if he doesn’t want to be vulnerable he can hide behind words. But there’s no lie or story that Michael would believe. He’s used to being able to choose what he says to people, at least more of the time. This level of emotional exposure is new._ _

__Michael gestures the bed like he’s presenting it for the first time. “You can sleep. You’re tired, probably. Uh, yeah, go for it.”_ _

__He looks at the bed confused. “But what about you?” Last time he had stayed over at Michael’s house was when they had been hanging out with Jeremy. He remembers falling asleep on the couch downstairs and Michael had gone back to his room. He had figured that’s what would happen again. Of course, if that had been the case, it made no sense to go up to Michael’s room in the first place but Rich hasn’t exactly been thinking ahead._ _

__“I can sleep on the couch downstairs, it’s no big deal.” Michael looks like he’s about to walk away._ _

__Fuck. This isn’t right. Rich doesn’t want to kick Michael out of his bed for the night. But he knows Michael. There’s no way that Michael is going to let Rich switch. “Or you could stay here,” he blurts out. Michael turns to look at him and Rich loses any confidence he had in the heat of the moment. “You know, like… both of us could be up here?” He halfheartedly gestures toward the bed, hoping his message gets across._ _

__Michael looks taken aback. “You sure? I wouldn’t want to impose or anything.”_ _

__“Michael. I’m staying at your house.”_ _

__“Oh, right,” he laughs awkwardly. “I mean, sure?”_ _

__All of a sudden Rich regrets even saying anything. He’s totally made Michael uncomfortable. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to."_ _

__“No, no it’s fine,” he mumbles. Then, a little stronger, “Yeah, it’s fine.”_ _

__“Alright.” They both stand there, waiting for the other to make the first move. Finally, Michael slowly walks over to the bed and sits down. Rich sits on the opposite side. They both hesitantly get under the blankets and Rich moves so he’s laying on his side, facing Michael’s window._ _

__In the quiet, Michael sighs and whispers, “Forgot the lights, sorry.” The bed shifts as Michael gets up. Suddenly the room goes dark. Rich hears him walk back but notices he stops a few steps short of the bed._ _

__“Hey, Rich? I don’t want to assume your situation or anything but…,” he pauses for a moment, “but you seem like you had a rough time so if you wanted a hug of anything…” he trails off. Rich can’t think of a time Michael has sounded so unsure._ _

__“Uh,” he gets out before swallowing and saying, “Um, yeah.” He feels Michael get into bed. Slowly and gently, an arm wraps itself around his torso._ _

__“You good?” Michael asks._ _

__Rich hums a confirmation. This is almost too much. He and Michael are practically cuddling right now. It’s overwhelming and Rich isn’t sure if he’s more scared of what this might mean or happy that it’s happening._ _

__But he knows that he doesn't want it to end._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I need to add/change the tw please tell me


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mentions Rich's dad (Not a lot but better to be safe)

Rich cracks his eyes open slowly and finds himself in Michael’s bedroom. 

Oh. Right. Last night happened. He remembers leaving his house, feeling completely out of it, and then arriving here. Then, they ended up in the same bed together. Not in that way, but still. 

He glances over. Michael, at some point, had traveled to the other side of the bed in his sleep. Or deliberately moved away from Rich. He couldn’t be sure. Across the room, Michael’s clock flashes the time at him. It’s a little after five. Which meant he only slept for about three hours.

He drags a hand over his face and lets out a slow breath. He can’t deal with this right now. Michael might wake up soon and want answers that Rich can’t give. Or it might be awkward. They just shared a bed together. That wasn’t something guy friends did. At least, he didn’t think so. Though, since he’s never really had a close friend without the SQUIP (which means he’s never had a close friend at all) he wouldn’t know.

It was still stupid. Rich had finally struck a balance in their friendship. Rich was open enough about the issues he was dealing with so that he wasn’t bottling it all up but closed off enough so that Michael wouldn’t worry too much. But last night, he had been scared, hurt, and upset. And now, he potentially ruined this. 

Part of him wondered if he was overreacting. A bigger part of him felt like it was better to play it safe. He slips off of the bed, careful not to wake Michael up. The sweatpants come off and the jeans come back on. He swings his backpack over one shoulder and slowly opens the door, walking into the hallway. 

He treads down the stairs, hoping that they don’t creak. Thankfully, none of them do. It’s nearly over. All he has to do is walk through the living room, send Michael a text that tells him that he left, and walk out the door. The next time they see each other, this whole incident will have blown over and everything will be back to normal. 

That had been the plan anyway. To run and hide like he always did.

Instead Rich enters the Mell’s living room and makes direct eye contact with a woman, sporting a short bob and dressed in business clothes, working on a laptop. Crap. He totally forgot that Michael said his mom worked early. He thought early meant, like, eight in the morning not five. 

Maybe she didn’t see him. He could sneak back up the stairs and try to climb out a window. He tries to remember if there were any large, conveniently placed trees outside that he could climb down. Rich thinks all this while still maintaining eye contact with Michael’s mom but hey, he can dream.

“Hey there. Sorry if I spooked you,” She breaks the silence. “I have to leave for work in an hour or so but I’ve got a big meeting with a client so I decided to start work early.” She shrugs lightly and leans back into the couch. 

Rich isn't sure how to respond so he ends up nodding dumbly. His feet are frozen to the staircase as he tries to figure out his next move. His thought process is interrupted however, by Michael’s mom speaking again. 

“Don’t be shy. You can come on down the stairs.” She shuts her laptop halfway and smiles up at him. Feeling like he has no other option, he walks slowly down the stairs. As he sits down in the chair across from her he reminds himself that Michael assured him that his moms wouldn’t be mad that he was here.

“I’m guessing you’re Rich?” She tilts her head questioningly. “I’m Melissa. Do you want something to eat? Or maybe to drink? We might have juice but there’s always water. If you wanted something.” She begins to stand up.

“No, I’m fine,” he rushes out. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You sure?” she asks. He nods quickly “Alright then,” she says as she sits back down. 

“How did you know who I was?” Rich hasn’t met either of Michael’s moms yet. And he didn’t think that Michael had told her that he was here tonight. All of a sudden, he’s hyper aware of the fact that short sleeves and how obvious the scars are on his arms. Or how visible the one crawling up his collar bone was without a hoodie to cover it. He had slowly gotten used to showing his scars with people he knew. He even occasionally took off his sweatshirt during tech. But when meeting new people he always seems to be confronted with the reality again. She recognized him because he's the idiot kid who burned down a house. “Oh,” he says softly, more to himself then to her, as he picks at the skin near his wrist.

Melissa doesn’t seem to notice this realization. “Well, I already know Jeremy. And according to Michael, Jake is the tall one. Which really only left one guy friend left unless there was somebody I didn’t know about. Plus, you’re the only one with dyed red hair.”

Rich tries to think of something to say or do. But he doesn’t get the chance. “My wife, Charlotte, and I have been waiting to meet you but I guess our paths never crossed.” She waves a hand dismissively. “No matter. It’s nice to meet you Rich.”

“Nice to meet you too,” he mumbles out. Before he can think about how awkward he’s being she speaks again.

“Michael talks about you. You seem to be a good friend.”

Rich can’t imagine what Michael’s talked about or what he’s done to be a good friend. He ignores it though. “Well, Michael’s a good friend too.”

She smiles. “That’s nice to hear. How’s school? Are you doing anything interesting?”

“It’s fine. I’m on the tech crew.” Small talk is not his strength but Melissa seem’s nice enough that he’s willing to make some sort of effort.

“That’s good. Must be fun. The musical’s tonight, right?”

He nods. “Friday through Sunday.”

“Well, good luck.” The smile drops from her face as she asks, “Is everything okay?”

“What?” he asks, not really meaning to say it out loud. “I’m fine Mrs.Mell.”

She sighs a little before continuing. “I just noticed your arm.”

He’s confused. He knows about the scars from the fire but they’ve healed enough to not look recent. He looks to where she’s pointing and sees a dark bruise poking out from beneath his sleeve. “Oh that? It’s nothing.” He falters for a moment remembering when he was younger and better at lying. “I, um I…”

“Rich?” she says quietly.

His head snaps back to look at her. “I fell. When I was walking here, I fell and landed on my arm.” Not a lie, just not the whole truth. Besides, once he graduates next year he’ll be able to leave. He can figure out until then. He already has too many people worried. 

She looks upset, like she can tell he’s lying but can’t think of a good enough reason to call him out on it. Or she knows she won’t be able to convince him to trust someone he just met. 

“Alright,” she sighs. “Well, I should get back to work so I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.”

He nods silently as he gets up. As he starts towards the door he hears her call out, “Aren’t you staying?”

Rich freezes, hand already reaching out towards the door knob, “No? There’s school and I figured I should get home so…”

He hears a few clicks on her laptop, “Isn’t today an institute day?”

Crap. It totally is. He remembers Christine being annoyed that they had the day off and couldn’t get one more full rehearsal in before the show. He fumbles, trying to come up with a believable reason as to why he needs to be home at five in the morning. “Yeah, but-”

“Rich. You have an off day. Have fun with it.”

He turns. “Are you asking me to hang out with your son?”

She laughs lightly. “I guess? What I’m really telling you is that you’re free to stay here. At least wait for Michael to wake up and give you a ride.”

Rich studies her face for a moment. She seems sincere. If Michael’s mom wants him to stay and Michael wouldn’t want him to leave without saying anything maybe he should stay. Just for a little bit. It’s not like he would have gone straight home anyway. And he barely slept last night so it might be good to go back to bed for a little bit. “If you’re okay with me staying…”

Melissa stands up and walks towards him. “I mean it. You are welcome to stay here whenever you want.” She’s staring him down with a fierce kindness. It reminds Rich of Michael and he wonders if this is where he got it from. He also wonders if she’s trying to tell him something else, that he’s welcome to stay here even if he isn’t hanging out with Michael. 

“Okay.” He slips past her and heads towards the stairs. In his peripheral, he can see her looking up at him, a little worried. He tries not to think about it too much. 

He reaches Michael’s bedroom and put his bag back down. Slowly, he lays down in Michael’s bed again, not really caring that he still has his jeans on. He turns his head and watches Michael sleep. Not in a creepy way, but it would still be awkward if he woke up right now. 

He doesn’t care. He lets himself have this moment. A moment where he feels safe to not care about anything for a little bit. Where he’s not worried about what might happen next. Where he can look at Michael’s face, marvel at how good looking he is, and not worry about whether or not he likes him back. The sun finally starts to peak in through the bottom of the windows and Rich drifts off to sleep.


	23. Chapter 23

Rich wakes up for the second time today to find Michael leaning up against the dresser fiddling with the strings of his hoodie. As he props himself up on his elbows, Michael looks up briefly before focusing his gaze back down. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Rich replies. Michael seems off in a way he can’t quite place. 

“Did you sleep good?” He still hasn’t really made eye contact. 

“Yeah, it was alright.” He sits all the way up, shifting off the blankets. This conversation is far more formal than he is used to with Michael. He feels like he’s done something wrong but he doesn’t know what. “Is something up?”

Michael stares at him hard. “You know you can talk to me, right? About anything?”

“Yeah?”

“So,” he says, shifting on his feet, “Is there anything you want to tell me?”

Rich thinks for a minute, trying to figure out what Michael is looking for. He doubts Michael would care that he talked to one of his moms this morning. If he wanted to talk about why he had stayed over tonight he probably would’ve brought it up last night. Or at least gone about this conversation in a different way. Maybe he shouldn’t have stayed this long. He knew he should have left this morning. Trying desperately not to jump to conclusions he says, “I don’t think so? What’s up?”

Michael takes a deep breath, like he’s trying to steady himself. “Your phone,” he says at last. “When I got up it was flashing a notification that it’s battery was low.”

“Okay,” Rich says slowly, leaning up against the headboard of the bed. Michael wouldn’t be mad that his phone was dying. He tries to think of anything on his phone that would cause Michael to react like this. 

“It was a total coincidence, you know? If i had gotten up 2 minutes later I probably wouldn’t have even noticed.” He looks toward Rich for confirmation. Rich nods and he continues. “So I looked in your backpack to see if you brought a charger. I shouldn’t have looked through your stuff, I know, but I thought I was being nice.” 

Rich sees him bite the inside of his cheek. “Michael, it’s okay.”

Michael shakes his head slightly. “It’s just…. I found this,” he turns and grabs something sitting on his dresser. “And it could mean nothing and I hope I’m overreacting.” He faces forward holding a bottle of Mountain Dew. “Maybe, I’m reading into it and you just like Mountain Dew but I know Jeremy wouldn’t even look at it in the store the first few weeks so…”

Fuck. Had he grabbed that last night? He must have. Which means the SQUIP is probably somewhere in his bag as well. That had not been the plan but he had been so upset in the heat of the moment that he guesses that-

“Rich,” Michael interrupts his train of thought. “Please, just tell me that I’m overthinking this.” He looks almost desperate and Rich can only imagine what is going on in his head. But he’s not going to lie.

He gets up from the bed so he’s standing in front of Michael, “It's complicated.”

Michael slams the bottle of Mountain Dew on the dresser and Rich flinches. He storms off to the other side of the room, “Shit.”

Rich takes a breath and reminds himself that just because Michael is mad doesn’t mean anything bad is going to happen. “I can explain that. Let’s just talk.”

“Do you have one?” Michael’s voice is slow and deliberate.

“Yeah.” 

“Why?” he asks, incredulous. “Were you going to take it here? That thing hurt a lot of people and you were going to just take it again? It hurt you Rich.” His voice gets a little louder. “You were going to come here and act like we're friends when you have that thing in your bag. I can’t believe this.”

Michael takes a few steps towards him, looking like he might cry. “I mean, what is it about me that makes people want to take that stupid thing?”

Rich knows Michael’s angry right now but he feels like that misses the point. “It was never about you.”

“Really? First Jeremy, then you? I thought I had been helping. I thought that this friendship meant something but I guess not since everyone keeps trying to find a computer to get rid of me.”

“It’s not like that. I was in a bad place freshman year when I took it. I’m sure Jeremy was too. That has nothing to do with it.” Rich is keeping his voice soft as he can, not trying to make this worse than it already is. “Just let me explain, alright?”

Michael shakes his head, almost in disbelief, like he can’t think of any explanation that would make this okay. Regardless he sits down on the bed and waves a hand at Rich as if to say ‘Alright, here’s your chance.’

When finally given the option, Rich finds that he’s not sure what to say. After taking a moment he decides to start at the beginning. “I found it in my locker a few weeks ago. I panicked and grabbed it. A couple days later I bought the Mountain Dew.” 

Michael doesn’t respond. Feeling bold, Rich sits down next to him on the bed. “I wasn’t in a good place, okay? I was struggling a lot more than I was telling you or anyone. Everything felt hard and I forgot how to do simple stuff. Even after a while, long after I thought I should have been back to normal. I just kept messing everything up.”

At this point he tries to make eye contact with Michael, who does not return the favor. He continues. “But I never had that problem when I had the SQUIP. Sure, I had a lot of other problems back then but I guess I tried to justify it? Because I felt so clueless. You gotta understand waking up without it was great but it also felt like…” he pauses trying to figure out how to describe that feeling, “Like being lost in the woods in the dark with wolves trying to attack you. Before, I had someone there to fend off the wolves. But every time they saved me they would stab me after. So the whole time you hate the fact that you’re getting stabbed. But when you’re alone you think ‘Hey maybe I would rather get stabbed then have to worry about the wolves’.”

He hears Michael sigh, look up at him slowly, and say “What?”

Rich decides to continue with his convoluted forest metaphor. “But it’s wrong to think that because getting stabbed is always bad even if sometimes it saves you from a bad conversation. Or an attack from wolves for that matter. But eventually, when you stop getting stabbed so often, you realize the wolves weren't that big of a deal anyway and you might have hurt them more than they hurt you.”

“Rich that barely tracks.”

“Oh,” he says, looking down in his lap. “Right. Well, then it felt… quiet.”

Michael doesn’t say anything for a while. Finally, without looking at Rich, he says, “Were you going to take it?”

“No,” he replies, and he’s telling the truth. “I think it just felt good to know I had an out. If I needed it. But I don’t think I was ever really going to take it.”

When he found that SQUIP he had been upset because he felt like he didn’t know what he was doing. At the time, he had felt alone in that. But if he takes the time to think about it, no one really knows what they’re doing all the time. Which was hard to believe because it contradicted everything the SQUIP told him. 

**Everyone else knows how to be normal. You’re the one freak who never figured it out,** it had said.

But that’s not true. 

Jake has to deal with the stress of his parents leaving. Jenna worked for years to navigate relationships the only way she knew how, even if it wasn't always the best thing to do. Chloe acted annoyed and scary so that no one would give her shit. Those are just the ones on the top of his head. If he really thought about it, everyone has problems. He just never noticed it before. And even though he doesn’t want his friends to struggle, it feels sorta comforting to know he’s not alone. 

Michael speaks up again. “If you weren’t going to take it then why did you bring it here?”

“So you would help me get rid of it,” he says automatically, surprising himself. But the more he thinks about it the more it makes sense. “Look, I tried to throw it out a few times and I couldn’t. You seem to have a good track record with these kinds of things.”

He sighs, “Give it here.”

Rich gets up and digs around in his backpack. Nestled in the bottom is the SQUIP. He hands it to Michael, who takes it. He rolls it around his fingers. “I’m sorry I freaked out.”

Rich shakes his head as he picks up the Mountain Dew bottle. “Don’t be. Believe me, if I was going to take that thing you had reasons to be freaked out.”

“Yeah but you weren’t,” Michael says earnestly. “The yelling and stuff wasn’t really cool on my part. I just feel bad whenever we’re like this.”

He’s silent for a second because, yeah, loud angry voices do suck. But Michael barely yelled and he took the time to listen after. That made it different. “Well, apology accepted for the yelling. But don’t feel bad for freaking out. You’re allowed to be upset. And the whole fighting thing? Don’t sweat it. Every time we’re ‘like this’ we always end up talking it through after getting the frustrations out. It’s like debating except there’s no winner.” He tilts his head to think for a second. “Is there a winner in a debate or do they just talk?”

Michael shrugs, “You would have to ask Jake.”

“Is Jake in debate?”

“I don’t know, probably.”

They both chuckle for a second. The silence falls and Rich turns to Michael, “Are we good?”

“Yeah. I’m good if you’re good.” He attempts a smile before standing up and nodding towards the door. “Alright, let’s go smash this motherfucker.”

They end up on the back porch and Michael throws the SQUIP on the concrete and smashes it under his foot. Rich gets a few good stomps in before pouring the bottle of Mountain Dew out in the grass. It’s extremely therapeutic. 

“Well,” he laughs, “Mell-2, SQUIP-0.”

Michael rolls his eyes as he comes to stand next to him. They both stare down at the broken pieces of the tiny computer. Rich has this momentary urge to grab his hand, to tell him that it's actually over this time. He pushes it aside, now's not really the time. Not that there will be a time. Michael thinks of him as a friend so it’s going to stay that way.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

They end up playing video games in the basement after ceremoniously destroying the SQUIP. For the first hour or so it’s fairly quiet. Rich thinks they’re both just processing. The past few hours had been kinda insane.

Michael had been remarkably cool today. A couple months ago Rich figured he would have freaked out at the thought of Rich even thinking about the SQUIP. But Michael had trusted him to listen to what he had to say. And Rich trusted Michael enough to tell him the truth. This level of trust felt…

He’s not sure how to describe it. If he had to choose one word it would be ‘warm.’ Being with Michael felt warm. Like he didn’t have to think about anything, he could just exist.

The screen flashes the red ‘Game Over’ logo and Rich lets his controller drop from his hand to land softly on the couch. He loves playing video games with Michael but that doesn’t mean he’s going to get any better at them. 

“See,” Michael says, gesturing at the fail screen, “This is why Jeremy is my best friend.”

It’s a joke, clearly. Jeremy and Michael have been friends for years and it’s not because of their video game abilities. He plays along anyways. “Oh? So if Jeremy’s skill gets him to best friend ranking then what am I?”

Rich doesn’t know what he expects as an answer. Honestly, anything Michael said would have worked, they were just joking around. What he doesn’t expect is for Michael to go silent for a moment before saying softly, “You? You’re… Rich.” He breathes the last part out so it’s almost a sigh. 

In any other context it might have been weird. Just saying his name, not getting a title like best friend number two, or just friend, or even an acquaintance. He got his name and nothing else like he was a regular guy who happened to be in the room. But he can tell Michael doesn’t mean it that way. 

The statement catches them both off guard for a second. He isn’t really sure how to respond to that. Michael shakes his head and the moment is gone. “Anyway, are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” Rich responds, stretching his arms over his head. It’s later in the day, passed noon, but he guesses that it must have slipped both their minds because he didn’t notice he was hungry until now.

Michael turns the T.V off. “What do you wanna eat?”

“Whatever,” he shrugs. 

“You should choose something,” Michael begins to head for the stairs.

Rich gets up to follow him. “I hid the fact that I had a SQUIP for multiple weeks. The punishment is that you should choose the food.” 

“Or.... you should choose because you’re the one staying at my house and I’m such a good host?”

Rich sighs, “How about we both choose?”

“Fine,” he relents.

They both walk up to the kitchen and begin looking through the cabinets. Cans of soup, boxes of macaroni, and other easy meals are all stacked on the counter as options. After a few minutes of searching, Michael holds up a box of pancake mix and raises his eyebrows in question.

“Yeah, maybe,” he says, because it definitely seems like a viable option. “I’ve never made pancakes before.”

“You’ve never made pancakes before?” Michael asks in deadpan disbelief. “Alright, problem solved, this is what we’re making.” He begins putting the other food away as he instructs Rich to grab measuring cups from a drawer on the other side of the kitchen. 

About two minutes later they’re dancing around the kitchen with music playing from Michael’s phone. It doesn’t take too long to mix up the batter and start pouring it in the pan. Neither of them are very good at flipping pancakes but at least Michael manages to keep his in one piece. They try flipping a few in the air by tossing the pan upwards. Miraculously, only one of these attempts ends up on the floor. After finding every possible topping you could put on a pancake the two of them settle down to eat. 

And Rich can’t complain. He’s sitting there eating pancakes, which happen to be really good, and talking with Michael. But it’s a little bittersweet. Sitting at Michael’s table, eating food they cooked together, and knowing that they’re just friends. 

It’s not that he’s ungrateful. He just wishes it was a different circumstance. Or that he could live in an alternate universe where he and Michael end up dating. Is that wrong? Earlier, he thought that being with Michael felt warm. Now, watching Michael excitedly talk about whatever the topic of the week is, it almost burns. It feels so good that it hurts. But at the risk of ruining a friendship, Rich is going to be content with what he has. 

With both of their pancakes finished and a quick lull in the conversation, Rich stands up suddenly. “We should clean,” he says, “We should probably clean the kitchen.” He needs a distraction and Melissa was too nice to him this morning for him to leave her kitchen a mess. Thankfully, Michael doesn’t find it too weird and he agrees. 

They both make their way to the kitchen. Michael left his phone by the table so the music is softer than before. They clean quietly, putting food back into the cabinet or fridge and washing out measuring cups. 

He turns, after returning a clean plate to it’s spot in the cabinet, to find himself face to face with Michael. Which shouldn't be a weird occurrence but it feels as though all the air has been sucked out of the room. They stand, staring at each other, almost like they’re waiting but Rich can't quite figure out what they’re waiting for. He feels like it might be something big but he doesn't know what.

Michael steps forward, closing the distance between them. “Rich, there’s something I wanted...I mean, look, I li..,” he trails off, words getting jumbled in the process. But Rich knows what he means. He and Michael have spent months learning how to read each other. He has the distinct feeling that they’re on the same page.On the other hand, this can't be what he thinks it is. He tries to push aside any doubt that he has, letting himself have hope, just for a minute. 

“No, yeah. I know. Me too.” The words come out faster than he intended, tripping over themselves in the process. _This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening._

Michael moves forward slightly, putting them closer than they’ve ever been.

 _This might be happening._

“Is it okay if I? I mean, Do you want to…” he sighs, frustrated that he can’t complete this thought. 

Rich nods, “Yeah, it’s okay.”

Michael finally gains the confidence he’s been looking for this whole conversation and leans forward kissing Rich on the lips.

 _This is happening._

He kisses back, Michael’s fingers running through his hair before landing near the back of his head. Rich reciprocates, throwing his hands around Michael’s shoulders, grabbing fistfuls of the red hoodie in his hands. 

_This is happening. This is happening._

Oh, fuck. This is real and happening right now. 

He pulls back. Michael lets him and they both stand there, breathing heavier than normal. “Everything okay?”

He nods, not trusting his voice at the moment. Everything’s great. It’s too great.

He spent weeks convincing himself this was never going to happen. That this couldn't happen. And now, all of a sudden it was happening. It was… it was...overwhelming.

“I have to go,” he says, locking eyes with Michael. “The musical starts tonight and I’m supposed to help set things up.” Not a lie. Sure, he probably could have stayed for another half hour if Michael drove him (which he would’ve) but Michael doesn’t need to know that. 

“Oh. Okay,” he responds, taken aback.

Rich is already heading towards the door,”It’s not you, I promise. I just have somewhere to be, you know? This was really cool.”

“Yeah?” Michael’s hopeful eyes are tracking Rich as he leaves. 

“Yeah,” he says, gathering all the confidence he can muster so that Michael believes him. “I’ll talk to you soon, alright?” 

His feet hit the pavement and he’s not sure if Michael responds. The winds ruffles the loose shirt he’s wearing as he takes off towards the school.

He needs time to think.


	25. Chapter 25

The large glass doors burst open as Rich all but stumbles into the empty school. He thinks he might have ran here. Rich vaguely remembers Jake telling him one time that running helps to clear his head. Standing, out of breath, in a vacant high school hallway, Rich would beg to differ.

Why did he keep doing this? He keeps bailing on people. He had been waiting for weeks for confirmation that Michael liked him. And now that he finally got it, he ruined it. He had one shot to actually have something with Michael and he blew it. 

A quick glance at his phone shows him that he did, in fact, run here. He’s way too early to start doing any work so he’s just stuck waiting until other people from tech show up. Rich figures that he might just sit in the theater and wait for a bit. But as he approaches the theater he has an idea. 

He passes the theater, turns down the hallway, and heads for the drama classroom. He knows on the days where there’s no rehearsal Mr.Reyes will let people hang out or practice in his room. Sure enough, as he gets closer to the door, he can hear people talking through the wall.

He opens the door, seeing a couple groups of people sitting in various corners of the room. The drama classroom doubles as the choir room, so it has some chairs but not really any desks. People have pulled the chairs into circles and are talking with each other. In the back sits Christine, Jeremy, Brooke, and Jenna. 

Brooke and Jenna are facing each other as Brooke helps Jenna with her makeup. Jeremy and Christine are sitting on two chairs that are pushed together as they both watch something on her phone. He waves tentatively and Brooke glances up to see who just entered. She smiles brightly, nearly dropping her makeup brush as she waves him over. 

He sits down as the group exchanges greetings. Brooke goes back to finishing Jenna's eye shadow as she starts to talk. “You’re here early.”

“So are you.” He's hoping that he doesn’t have to talk about the disaster that is his life right now. He would much rather listen to Brooke talk about anything else. 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “But Christine wanted to practice the new blocking-”

“That Mr.Reyes changed yesterday!” Christine interjects. “I mean what kind of a person does that the day before the show?”

Brooke nods in agreement and continues. “And since the rest of us we’re bored we decided to just stick around and wait for call time instead of going back home only to come back.” She opens a new palette and blends in a second color on Jenna’s eyelids. “But you don’t need to do makeup or hair or costumes. There’s no reason for tech to be here this early.”

“Not that you can’t hang out here!” Christine says. “You’re free to stay as long as you want.”

He shrugs. “Same as you. I got bored and came here early. Not much to say.”

Brooke studies him for a moment, pursing her lips. She turns to Jenna, who gives her a look. Looking back at Rich she says, “Really? That’s all?”

That’s all it takes to break him. “No,” he drags out, leaning back into his chair, head turning towards the ceiling. He covers his face with his hands, “Me and Michael kinda, sorta kissed,” he mumbles out.

“What?” Jeremy asks, shifting in his chair to face him. 

He lets his hands drop from his face and his arms swing for a moment next to the chair. “Me and Michael maybe, might have kissed?”

Reactions are mixed. Jeremy and Jenna lock eyes and simultaneously say, “Finally.” Brooke just looks shocked and Christine is already bombarding him with questions with a huge smile on her face. 

He holds a hand up, trying to signal for them to be quiet. “And after we kissed I ran over here so don't get your hopes up. Nothing more is going to happen.”

Jenna looks confused. “But you like him?”

“Yeah, but I was surprised and bailed because-”

“No, no,” she interrupts. “I’m not confused on why you left. We’re friends Rich, so I’m going to be honest. Leaving when you get freaked out is kind of your standard move. I’m more confused on why you think nothing more going to happen. I mean he kissed you back, right?”

“He kissed me and I kissed him back," he clarifies. "But that’s exactly why nothing is going to happen. Ditching is my ‘standard move’ and Michael deserves someone who isn’t going to run off at the drop of a hat.”

“Getting kissed is a bit bigger than ‘the drop of a hat’,” Brooke says. “There’s a lot of emotions there.”

Christine smiles warmly at him. “You’re not wrong for wanting space to think things over. Everyone processes emotions differently. Sure, actually running off might not be the best option but it doesn’t make you a bad guy.”

Rich groans. “Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, really. But Michael deserves to be mad at me so let’s just leave it.”

“He’s not going to be mad at you Rich,” Jenna says. 

“He kissed me and I ran,” he replies, putting a little bit of space between each word to help emphasize his point. Why can't they see that? Michael worked up the courage to make a move and Rich left him hanging. That’s not what you’re supposed to do.

“No,” Jeremy says. “He’s really not mad. He texted me, like, five minutes before you got here.”

“What?”

Jeremy reads aloud from his phone, “‘Are you at musical right now? Rich was at my place but said he had to head over there. Tell me if he gets there okay. Also, if he seems upset, tell him I'm not mad. I get it.’ I asked him why you would be upset but he wouldn’t tell me.”

Rich swipes the phone from his hand and reads the texts. It’s true. He slowly hands the phone back and looks at everyone. They do not look as surprised as he does. “Did you guys know?”

“Yeah,” Christine admits. “But we didn’t know you kissed! That’s totally new information.”

“Soo,” Brooke says. “How was it?”

He rolls his eyes good naturedly and before he has a chance to respond Christine adds on. “No, tell us what happened leading up to it first.”

“I don’t care about that,” Jenna says. “Tell us what you said before you ran off.” Brooke slaps her lightly on the arm, “What? I’m curious.”

“He doesn’t have to tell us anything he doesn’t want to,” Jeremy says.”But...I’m also kinda curious,” he adds sheepishly. “Half of my conversations with Michael are about you now. It’d be nice to know the whole story.”

The fact that Michael talks to Jeremy about him makes Rich smile like an idiot and it takes him a second before he starts talking. “Alright, I’ll tell you. But only because I like you guys.”

They don’t need to know everything. He doesn’t feel the need to rehash the whole SQUIP thing or explain why he showed up at Michael’s house in the middle of the night. “We were just hanging out. It was nice and we started talking.... and then we were kissing. And yeah Brooke, it was good if you really need to know.”

He keeps it vague on purpose. Not that he has anything to hide. But looking back on it, the whole thing felt too intimate to share. Which is dumb, it was mainly just eating pancakes. But the way he and Michael are around each other makes it feel like more than that. So, even if it’s just for now, he wants the details to not be part of this conversation. That way, the moment stays _theirs_.

“Yes, I did need to know!” Brooke says. “It’s an important part of the story, it’s romantic.”

Christine speaks up. “You don’t need to kiss someone for it to be romantic, Brooke.”

“Yeah I know. But since he mentioned it, I wanted to know.”

“So?” Jenna asks. “What happened after you two kissed?”

He groans and puts his face in his hands. “I think I told him it was cool.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “You told him he was cool?”

“I think it was more saying the kiss was cool,” he says as he tilts his head to look at her. 

“Wait,” Brooke says. “He kissed you and you said 'That was cool, see you later'?” He nods reluctantly. 

Jeremy laughs. “Dude, that's like the verbal equivalent of doing finger guns right after.”

“Or a thumbs up,” Christine adds.

“Yeah, I know. I wasn’t really thinking straight.” 

“Are you ever thinking straight?” Jenna asks.

Brooke pipes up, “I think he was thinking bi?”

Rich leans back in his chair, trying to think of a good comeback when the sound of the door opening makes him turn his head. There, standing in the front of the room, is Mr.Reyes. He claps his hands together loudly as he surveys the small gathering of students. 

“Alright everybody. I know you’re having fun but we’ve got to start getting ready so go get your costumes on and let’s have a great show.” He walks over to his desk, greeting students as he passes. 

They all stand up to get ready, Rich heading for the theater and the cast heading for the dressing rooms. He turns to face them at the door. “Well, I’ll see you guys later. Good luck tonight.”

The girls wave as they head down the hallway. Jeremy stands in the middle of the hallway looking at him. “Thanks Rich. Good luck with Michael.” He offers Rich a high-five which he returns. 

Before Jeremy leaves, Rich says, “Be honest, do I really have a shot with him?”

He laughs. “He kissed you dude, what more do you need to know?” Rich shrugs and Jeremy’s face goes serious. “Do I need to give you the obligatory ‘If you hurt him I’ll beat you up’ best friend speech?”

“No,” Rich says. “Because I don’t think you could beat me up.”

“Oh yeah?” Jeremy asks as he then proceeds to do fake fighting moves down the hallway, kicking at nothing and slashing through the air. These moves are paired with sound effects that Rich thinks are probably inaccurate. 

Rich throws his arms up in mock defeat. “I stand corrected.”

Jeremy drops his arms and looks at him. “Seriously dude. You’ll be fine.” And with that he walks off to get ready for the show.

Rich waves before turning around and heading for the theater. He opens the door to find other tech members putting the final set pieces on stage and some cast members frantically running around searching for props. He sits down behind the panel of buttons that control all the lights and releases a slow breath out.

He has a feeling that this is going to be a good show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the (much) longer than usual wait. Schools been kicking my ass so I took a little break. Expect similar wait times between chapters from now on because I can't write as often as I was before.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok.... so I'm back. I got into the groove of school, had time to write again, wrote about half of this chapter, got blindsided by midterms, stopped writing again, finally finished this chapter. Sorry, I really didn't mean for it to take this long.

The opening notes of the orchestra fill the theater as Rich sits in the lighting booth. He slowly dims the house lights and the chatter of the audience quiets as the show starts. The tech director is talking in his headset but it isn’t directed at him so he tunes it out. He keeps his eyes trained on the stage and the curtain begins to open. He flicks the lights on, having a spotlight directed at Christine and she begins to speak. 

Rich leans back in his chair watching Christine deliver her opening monologue. Michael’s not mad at him. This might actually work out. They need to talk about shit, obviously. But it feels different now that he knows that Michael likes him. 

He sees Christine cross the stage and recognizes that the first song is about to start. He waits for the cue and flicks the button, causing a few lights to change color. The stage tints blue as she begins to sing. Rich knows that he doesn’t have anything to do for the next three minutes so he bides his time listening to the song.

It’s an original. Mr. Reyes, a man who loves adapting Shakespeare even more than he loves hot pockets, took the script of Macbeth and added in his own songs. He also flipped the story to make Lady Macbeth the main character. It’s definitely inventive but this cast makes it work. But considering that he’s friends with most of the cast he might just be biased. 

The musical opens with Christine, who plays Lady Macbeth, singing a solo number. It’s written well, detailing her cunningness and ambition. From what Rich remembers of his SQUIP dominated sophomore year when they were supposed to read Macbeth, it’s fairly accurate to the character. But now? Hearing Christine sing a song about how she needs more out of life, it only reminds him of himself. 

Not that he thinks he’s exactly like Lady Macbeth. But the idea of someone who is willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want? Rich has been there, standing in the back of a payless, hands shaking, and desperately trying to hide a lisp. In about an hour Christine will perform the monologue where she fiercely tries to wash the blood off her hands and Rich will try hard not to relate it to the franticness he felt the night he set the fire. 

But at the end of the day, those are just memories. He is dealing with them, not living them. He remembers the hopelessness he felt freshman year, but he doesn’t feel it anymore. And he’s proud of it. The type of pride you can’t really share with anyone else. The type of pride that he carries with himself everyday because he knows he'll figure it out by the end. Even on the days where everything sucks. He opened up to Michael about the SQUIP, he destroyed it instead of taking it. That was all him. Freshman Rich found a way out. Now, Rich found a way through. 

It was scarier. But he thinks he’s found acceptance. Accepting the things he can’t change and the things he will. Accepting that other people care about him and that it’s okay. Accepting that he doesn’t have to believe it for it to be true. Accepting that he should probably stop with the self-reflection because he’s working right now and, fuck, that’s the last note of the song. He leans forward, flipping a few switches as the scene ends and the next one begins. 

His hand slips into his pocket and he pulls out his phone, flipping it nervously between his fingers. Should he text Michael during intermission? It would probably be better to talk face to face but the thought freaks him out a little. The thought of being scared actually scares him. When Rich is scared he runs or yells. He doesn’t want to do that this time. 

His fingers tighten around the phone as he tries to pinpoint where the nervousness is coming from. It’s more than the normal feeling someone would get before asking out a crush. It has to be; they know they like each other so rejection isn’t really a factor. 

He doesn’t want to rush into it. 

Ok, valid. The relationship should develop naturally. They don’t have to go from zero to a hundred just because they already kissed. But Michael would probably agree with him so it cant be that. 

This is new. He’s never been in a real relationship before.

He shakes his head slightly as he flips a switch on the panel. The concept of a relationship in general excites him more than it freaks him out. 

It could go wrong. Everything could go wrong. Michael could hurt him. He could hurt Michael. He going to fuck it up. It’s going to go wrong. It’s going to go wrong. It’s going to-

He bites down on the inside of his check, hard. Well, he figured out why he’s been worried about it. Great. The perfect time to confront his inner demons, in the middle of a theater performance. He takes a steady breath and looks up in time to see Brooke deliver a line that serves as a cue. He flicks on the spotlight and positions it to where Jeremy is about to stand. 

He’ll get through this. He’s gotten through other shit. He knows this is irrational. He knows that something isn’t destined to go wrong just because he is involved. He knows that even if something happens it won’t necessarily be the end of the world. Except last time he made a mistake and bought the SQUIP which made Jeremy buy a SQUIP which tried to take over the school and then it probably would have moved on to the world.

Okay. Statistically, if something bad happens the likelihood that it would lead to the end of the world is pretty low considering it already almost happened. 

It’s going to be fine, he tells himself. It’s Michael, he knows him. It’s going to be fine. He’s not going to sabotage this for himself. He’s allowed to be worried but he needs to be able to live the life he wants to. He doesn’t need to listen to the voices in his head. 

Take a breath. Light cue. It's going to be fine.

Take a breath. Light cue. It's going to be fine.

Take a breath. Light cue. It's going to be fine.

Rich keeps repeating it, hoping that at some point it’ll set in. He pours all his focus into the show.

Take a breath. Light cue. It's going to be fine.

Take a breath. Light cue. It's going to-

The smattering of applause breaks his train of thought. He looks out to see the cast finishing up their bows. As the curtain closes, he turns on the house lights and watches as the crowd filters out of the theater. 

It’s going to be fine. That’s what he told himself. He’s just not sure if he believes it yet. He makes his way out of the theater and into the packed hallway. 

Rich is bumping shoulders with strangers as he makes his way to the front of the school. He doesn’t have a plan, should he call? Text? Walk back to Michael’s house? It’s only now he realizes that he has no place to go and no way to get anywhere. 

He bumps into Jenna as he fights through the audience, composed mostly of friends and families of the cast. She holds out her arms for a hug which he returns. “You did good,” he says. 

“Thanks,” she says as she pulls back resting her hand on his shoulder momentarily. “I’ll see you around. Have fun.”

“Have fun? With what, I don’t-” she interrupts him by pointing towards a kid sitting on the bench outside the schools main office. He squints, dark hair, scrolling on his phone, and bouncing his leg is Michael. He turns back to say something to Jenna but he’s already lost her in the crowd. 

He rolls his shoulders back as he walks over. He’s not going to freak out. He’s not going to get overwhelmed. He’s going to have a serious conversation without bailing first for once in his life. 

Rich is about 5 feet from the bench now. Michael, in his own world, doesn’t notice. He sits down next to him and looks out straight ahead. “So, you come here often?”

Michael looks up, smiling slightly, and slips his phone into his hoodie pocket. “Yeah, I suppose you could say that.”

Neither of them speak for a moment. The sound of audience and cast members talking excitedly about the show that just occurred fills the school. Rich picks at the skin around his fingernails, “Can we talk?”

Michael shrugs, “We’re talking now.”

Rich sits back until his head touches the wall. He stares out, not looking towards Michael. “I’m sorry I left, okay? I need you to know that. It’s not that I didn’t like what was happening, I just freaked out. Not in like a bad way or anything I just…” he sighs, frustrated, “I like you Michael. I really like you.”

He fiddles with his hoodie string. “I like you too. Seems like there's nothing more to talk about.”

Rich wants to leave it at that, he really does. He wants it to be that simple and for them to just go back to Michael’s house and not worry about anything. But doubt is gnawing at his stomach and creeping up towards his chest. “But I keep fucking it up,” he blurts out.

“You keep fixing it.” Michael counters, exceedingly patient. More patient than he should be. He’s tired of making Michael have to be patient with him. “Besides, I’ve messed up too. People mess up. People fix things. That’s kinda how the world works.”

Rich laughs a little under his breath. “Really? In the entire time we’ve known each other, who's the one who keeps messing up?”

Michael’s voice is harder than usual. “I pushed you to talk about things that you didn’t want to talk about.”

He shakes his head, “But talking about things is healthy-”

“Not before you’re ready,” Michael interjects. “You should’ve felt more comfortable to talk around me. I should have listened, not interrogated.” He looks down, speaking softly. “I was friends with Jeremy for twelve years and I couldn't help him when he needed me. I just thought that I could help you and at the beginning I pushed too hard. So stop acting like you’re the only one who can make mistakes because it’s not true and it’s not healthy to think like that.”

Rich reaches over slowly, resting his hand near Michael’s. Michael grabs in and their fingers intertwine. “Michael, you did help me. You can be imperfect and still have helped me.”

He squeezes his hand. “Well, you can be imperfect too.”

It’s all Rich needs. A promise that he’s allowed to mess up. That they’re both allowed to mess up. That maybe they can love each other because of the imperfections, not in spite of them. He looks around and sees that most people have cleared out, save for a few lingering people. He stands up, taking Michael’s hand with him. “So, you mind if I hang out at your place tonight?”

Michael rises to join him, “Not at all.”

They journey together to the parking lot, street lights reflecting off of puddles and car doors. “So…” Rich drags out. “You came to see me in the musical?”

He shrugs, “Nah, I was just here to see Jeremy.”

Rich rolls his eyes a little, “And…?”

“Well, I also told Brooke that I would come to watch her.”

Rich bumps his shoulder affectionately, “You’re an asshole.”

Michael laughs a little, “No wait I’m not done, I watched the musical for Jenna and then Christine and _then_ you.”

“Haha,” he says deadpan, “Very funny. You’re a regular comedian.”

They reach Michael’s car and climb in. As he sits down and starts to reach for his seatbelt, Michael grabs his hands and squeezes it slightly. “Just so you know, the lights were very cool.”

Rich pulls his hand out, confidently stating, “Well they better have been. I’m basically the light expert.”

“Oh yeah?” Michael asks, putting the keys in the ignition. “Who calls you that?”

“Well, no one but me so far but it's catching on.”

Michael shakes his head slightly as he grabs his phone and turns it on, finding his way to Spotify. “Any requests?”

“Yeah,” Rich says, smiling. “Wanna be my boyfriend?”

He laughs out loud as they pull out of the parking lot. “I thought you were never going to ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Epilogue is next yall! It's been a fun ride but it will probably take me like a month lol


	27. Chapter 27

Rich’s process of moving into the Mell’s home starts slowly .He doesn’t even notice he’s doing it at first. 

When he and Michael started dating he would spend weekends over there, heading there after school on Fridays and leaving Monday morning. But as time went on, he found himself there more and more often. First it was the occasional Thursday, then it’s coming over to study on Tuesdays. After two months, Charlotte, Michael’s other mom, just happens to have a friend who is getting rid of an old dresser and wouldn’t you know it just fits perfectly with the color scheme in the basement (it doesn’t) and, gosh, we have to keep it don’t we Melissa?. “Such a shame,” she had sighed, shaking her head, “We don’t really have anything to store in it. Unless, of course, Rich would like to keep some of his things in there since he’s here so often anyways?”

He does put his stuff in there. Soon enough, he realizes that most of his stuff is here and he can’t come up with a reason for going back to his house. But he can’t just move in (even though the Mell's might argue that he already has). It’s rude and imposing and a million other things Rich doesn't want to be. He can’t just ask to move into someone's house. That just doesn’t happen.

He tests the waters. He stays for 5 days one week. Then six. They never ask when he’s planning on heading home and whenever he leaves, they always ask him to stay ‘just a bit longer.’ One time he went to hang out with Jake and Melissa had reminded him to be home at 11 because he had a history test tomorrow. The whole experience sends him into a tailspin.

He told her about a history test because she asked over dinner. A dinner with all four of them. They had all sat at the table and talked. She had asked about school and he told her and she remembered. She called it home. She called it home. She called it _his_ home.

Jake had driven him back that day and as they got nearer Rich got more and more restless. His leg was bouncing frantically and his hands kept running through his hair. Jake glances over but stays silent. Rich already told him what he was planning. He knows that Rich needs quiet right now. He knows what it’s like to find a family who cares about you. 

They pulled into the driveway and Jake took a breath. “It's going to be fine dude. They love you, you know that right?” Rich nodded. 

“Thanks,” he said, both of them knowing he wasn’t really thanking him for the ride. 

The walk from the car to the front door had felt like hours. He opened the door, walking into the living room. Charlotte and Melissa had been sitting on the couch, watching some T.V show. He remembers telling Michael to head upstairs, that he’ll meet him up there later. He remembers sitting on the couch, silently, not sure where to begin. Charlotte and Melissa had just watched, waiting for him to go first.

“You can say no,” he opened with. “Don’t feel like you have to say yes.” They nodded. “But I was wondering if maybe, I don’t go back to my dad’s house this week? Or next week. Or anytime soon really. If that’s alright?”

They agreed. Of course they did. He hugged them and cried with Michael for an hour. It had been a good day.

\---

He’s partners with Chloe in science every time they have a lab and he's finally starting to get the hang of it. One day she shyly (a word he never thought he’d have to use to describe Chloe freaking Valentine) confesses that she’s been considering being a science teacher. That she had no idea what she wanted to do with her life but the more she thinks about it the more she wants to. “That’s cool,” Rich said earnestly. “Would you teach physics?”

“No,” she laughed. “Not if I could help it. I’m teaching chemistry.”

\---

He, Jenna, and Brooke will hang out by the bleachers after school and just talk, It feels a little like a teen coming of age movie, chatting about nothing and laughing at everything as the sun starts to set behind them. As time goes on he gets the feeling that he’s the third wheel. Which only makes it feel more like a teen movie, except this ones a rom-com and he’s the bi best friend. One day he got up to leave early and told them, “Look, either you’re dating in secret or you’re both the most oblivious people I've ever met. And I know me. But the suspense is killing all of us.”

The look on their face is priceless. (They show up to school the next day holding hands.)

\---

Sometimes, he and Christine will go to the library to hang out. She’ll rant about theater or plays and he listens patiently because he loves to hear her ramble. He’ll flip through books about art history as she talks. The history doesn’t really intrigue him but the pictures are always interesting and often he’ll pick one to try and recreate at home. 

Also, they have a secret handshake. It gets longer every time they’re alone and they’re just waiting for the perfect moment to whip it out to confuse and impress the entire group. It’s going to be amazing

\---

The Mell’s give him a set of colored pencils for Christmas. Really good ones, in more colors than Rich can count. He knows that Melissa’s birthday is in a month and he immediately gets ready to repay her with a gift of his own. Rich draws out their living room, as if you were entering from the back, with a good view of the fireplace, standing behind the couch. There, on the couch, he draws the back of three heads. Two women, one with short dark bob, the other with longer, wavy blonde hair, and a younger boy with short darker hair. They're sitting close together with their arms around each others shoulders. He has a week before he needs to give it to her and hesitantly he adds a shorter boy with a red streak in his hair. He frames it and when he gives it to her he's reminded of a little kid giving their parents a drawing to hang on the fridge. 

But it’s far more than just a drawing and they all know it. She cries when he hands it to her.

\---

Rich slips off his blazer, hanging it on the chair next to Michael. He sits down, looking at his boyfriend. Michael is sitting off to the side, alone. He has been hunched over the table, scrolling endlessly on his phone. “Having fun?” 

He shrugs. “It’s prom.”

Rich thinks that sums up the situation pretty well. Rich is always down for a party, even if the last one he attended hadn’t gone so well. He had rationalized that this would be different because he didn’t have a SQUIP and thankfully, his anxiety had agreed (though thinking about Halloween in general still made his stomach drop).

But he liked dancing and was always looking for a good excuse to hang out with his friends so he quickly agreed to go with the group to prom. Michael was not a dance guy. He was more of a stay at home playing video games while talking about Star Trek kind of guy. He had agreed to come anyway. Rich assured him that they could skip if he wanted to but Michael had stood his ground.

“It’s fine Rich. It’s a couple of hours. Besides, prom is a staple of the American high school experience. I should go anyway,” he had said.

Rich would have fired back that Michael doesn’t care about the ‘high school experience’ at all but Michael hadn’t seemed too annoyed at the idea of attending so he let it go. Now, he can tell that his boyfriend would rather be anywhere else. It is loud, crowded, and full of flashing lights. Michael’s idea of a party consisted of ten people or less.

He looks out towards the mob of teenagers. They took pictures earlier tonight. He already danced to his heart's content with Brooke and Christine and everybody else before they went to go mingle. He’s heard every song that he wanted to hear. There’s really no reason to be here any longer. He stands up, shrugs on his blazer, and grabs Michael by the arm. “Come on, we're going,” he says, raising his voice to be heard above the music.

“Where?” he asks, rising from his chair too fast and stumbling a little. Rich doesn’t answer, just drags him out to the parking lot, letting the pulsing music fade behind them. They make their way out to a familiar, red PT cruiser and Rich finally lets him go. Michael sighs, “Rich we can go back inside, it’s fine. We can’t just take off without telling anybody, I drove like half of us here.”

“Shut up, we’re not leaving.”

“Then what are we doing?”

Rich pulls his phone out of his pocket and flashes it towards Michael, “Any requests?”

He only raises his eyebrows in response. Rich ignores him and pulls up a song. It’s the same song that Michael played that first day in the hospital. By the small smile of his face, he knows Michael remembers it. He steps forward and wraps his arms around Michael's waist, pulling him closer. 

“Seriously,” Michael says, “What are we doing?”

He begins to rock to the beat. “It’s prom and we’re dancing.”

Michael follows his rhythm, “You’re an idiot,” he says, laughing. Rich can tell that it’s a compliment.

“Yeah well, I'm an idiot who loves you.”

“Guess that makes me the guy in love with an idiot.”

Rich glances up, “You’re really lucky, I heard that this idiot is a pretty cool dude.”

Michael rolls his eyes, “Yeah, I suppose he is.”

He lifts his hand and arches it behind Michael’s neck pulling him down. There in the dark of night, in the middle of a random banquet hall parking lot, at junior prom, he and Michael kiss. They’ve kissed before and Rich will make sure they kiss again. But right now he’s going to enjoy this one while it lasts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody! If you had told me a few months ago that I would write a 40k+ word fic with 27 chapters I would not have believed you. This was so much fun and I cannot wait to keep writing thanks to you guys. The kudos and comments have really meant a lot. I'm sorry for not responding to all of them, your kindness has been overwhelming at times. So, this is a blanket THANK YOU SO MUCH! for any one who has even made it to this point even if you didn't comment or anything. I think you're great. I hope it was worth it <3


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